The Autobiography of Mary Smith, Schoolmistress and Nonconformist, a Fragment of a Life: With ...

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1

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O^to

THE

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OF

MAft.Y SMITH,

SCHOOLMISTRESS AND NONCONFORMIST.

A FRAGMENT OF A LIFE.

WITH

LETTERS FROM JANE WELSH CARLYLE

AND

"^THOMAS CARLYLE.

LONDON: BEMROSE & SONS.
CARLISLE: THE WORDSWORTH PRdgST

75 SCOTCH STREET. | A.^ ; // C'^LLkG

MDCCCXCII.

/^•^vx-s^

1

v\

O^to

THE

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OF

MAft.Y SMITH,

SCHOOLMISTRESS AND NONCONFORMIST.

A FRAGMENT OF A LIFE.

WITH

LETTERS FROM JANE WELSH CARLYLE

AND

"^ THOMAS CARLYLE.

LONDON: BEMROSE & SONS.

CARLISLE: THE WORDSWORTH PR]^]^ ^'

75 SCOTCH STREET. ^'' ' ' C' LL'

MDCCCXCII.

'■•' '«M»>.

. ■ ■ I n il

1

vv

O^to

I

THE

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OF

MAft.Y SMITH,

SCHOOLMISTRESS AND NONCONFORMIST.

A FRAGMENT OF A LIFE.

WITH

LETTERS FROM JANE WELSH CARLYLE

AND

^THOMAS CARLYLE.

LONDON: BEMROSE & SONS.

CARLISLE: THE WORDSWORTH PR]^;

75 SCOTCH STREET.

MDCCCXCII.

Am -.' '/ C'^LL^G^

1 «

.Y

"••M....

'^'^^^^'^'b^

IN MEMORY OF

WILLIAM ROBERT PERCIVAL,

(herein mentioned,)

A THOUGHTFUL AND CATHOLIC
MINDED MAN: A MAN OF MUCH

WISDOM.

CHAPTER I.

I WAS born in an English nonconformist household,
of simple country habits, of the order of the common
people, without any pretension whatever to wealth
or rank, at Cropredy, a village in the north of
Oxfordshire, on February 7th, 1822.

My parents, a quite unromantic pair, as it appears,
were William Smith, a tradesman, a boot and shoe-
maker, a native of that place, and Ann Pride, a
Gloucestershire farmer's daughter, who had come
thither in the capacity of cook at the vicarage.
The Gloucestershire farmers, a hard working thrifty
race of people, something like the Scotch, preferred
to send their daughters into good service, where
they might both learn something and make some-
thing, to keeping them at home, and all the more
so, when, as was the case in my mother's family,
there was a preponderance of girls — more than the

household had need of
L 1

2 MARY SMITH.

My mother had a good deal of ability in her
special line — cookery; and hence had travelled
about a good deal with the family, a rich pluralist
vicar, who had married a duke's daughter. Conse-
quently great style and state were kept up at the
vicarage, which was of imposing dimensions ; and
with its gardens and shrubberies — all closed round
with high wails and trees, overtopped and thickly
interlaced with ivy — stood in the centre of the
village, adjoining the church. The farmers* and
tradesmen's houses flanked it all round, while the
labouring population lived in poor tumble-down
thatched cottages, with dunghills in front of them,
at the back of all.

But notwithstanding this, compared with many
villages of that period, it was a large, lively, and
pleasant one ; the Cherwell flowing out of North-
amptonshire through its eastern side, and about a
stone-throw west of it, on the same side, the Oxford
canal, a much more important and busy scene of
traffic than at present, both in the coal and carrying
trade. All the coal that was then brought from
the far north, came by boats by the canal. And in
the event of a long frost, when the boats were

CROPREDY. J

Stopped sometimes for five or six weeks, the coals
rose to a great price ; the poor at such times being
obliged to find their fuel in what they could gather
in the fields and woods. On the west of the church
— which was a large handsome edifice, and, though
apparently many hundred years old, in good repair
— ran the highway leading north to Birmingham,
and south to London and Oxford, its nearest market
being Banbury, a small town, in the centre of an
agricultural district, about four miles off, on the
Cherwell.

My father was married young, being at the time
little more than twenty. My mother was his senior
by a year or two. He brought her to his ancestral
home, in a row of houses which faced the church.
It was built of stone, and thatched, like all the
others in the village (except the vicar's) ; a large
rambling house with plenty of room in it ; the shop
on one side, with its low casement window and
half-door, the latter of which hung open all summer
long. The dwelling house was on the other side,
with its carpetless stone floor and bed rooms and
large attics, which last served in after years for
additional bed rooms, or store rooms for apples.

4 MARY SMITH.

My mother was a very industrious, thrifty woman,
with a passion for business, though at the time of
their marriage, neither of my parents had more than
a few pounds beyond their immediate needs. How-
ever, her parents made it a rule to give to each
daughter on her marriage, fifty pounds, and my
mother received this small portion. This probably
was the means of setting the young couple forward.
At all events, my mother opened a small grocer's
shop at the back of the premises. Conjointly, by
their industry, they seem to have prospered. I
have heard my father say, they saved fifty pounds a
year as long as she lived, even with an increasing
family around them.

I was the second daughter and fourth child of
this union. My mother died of dropsy soon after
giving birth to the next child ; and the nurse who
attended her, became housekeeper to the family.
Her death was the beginning of long years of
trouble. Strangers and relatives who professed to
take an interest in my father's young family, came
often for far different ends— to take the furtive
opportunity to despoil him of many of mother's
treasures. In her travels on the continent, with

CROPREDY. S

the vicar's family, she had bought many articles of
delft and china of foreign manufacture ; also beau-
tiful shawls, crapes, and silks, quite likely to awaken
the covetous spirit of unprincipled female relatives.

At last, stimulated possibly by his many difficul-
ties, and his host of false friends, he took the final
step of marrying (as many good men have done
before,) the housekeeper he had retained from my
mother's death, who proved a kind mother to his
children, and a very devoted and loving wife to
him, through many years of chequered but peaceful
life. From this time, the family settled down into
something of its old order; though firora various
reasons, but more especially the loss of my mother's
superior business skill, it never quite resumed its
former prosperity.

My father, however, had been prepared for these
sad events by a great change, which had taken
place in his life while my mother yet lived. Like
the rest of the tradesmen of the village before that
event, he had thought it his first duty to go to
church, to please the vicar; but now old things
had passed away, and all things had become new.
And this great change in his life had strengthened

6 MARY SMITH.

his spirit to bear these trials, and had made him an
earnest and loving servant, and a true and fearless
disciple of Christ. At another village, called Great
Bourton, about a mile off, there was, and still is, a
small Independent chapel, which had originally
been one of Lady Huntingdon's. A Mr. Hood
was stationed at that time at this chapel, and after
him a gentleman of the name of Styles, who after-
wards rose high in the denomination and became
Dr. Styles.

Under the preaching of Mr. Hood, my father —
who had previously been a churchman and a
worldly man, without any special religious light or
knowledge, as were the whole village population,
with hardly an exception — became a truly devoted
spiritual man and a nonconformist, joining this
poor small band of Independents, at Great Bourton.
Being now Puritan in life and Calvinistic in creed,
all things became new in our house.

One of the first things I discerned in my early
childhood was, that my father was not like other men ;
that he did not swear, nor get drunk, nor indulge
in loud, foolish, and filthy conversation, nor did he
get into towering passions ] but was, at all times, a

CROPREDY. 7

sober, sensible, gentle, and patient man; and was
always ready to do good and assist in any way he
could, others who noiight be in difficulties.

I found early in life, that we were disdainfully
called "Meetingers," "dissenters," etc., and regarded
as queer folk. Often when a child, as I trotted
silently by my father's side down the village street,
I saw, as we came to the corners — then the habitual
evening lounge of the wickedest and worst of the
young men and boys of the parish — coarse jests and
rude laughter would precede our arrival, though they
generally dropped silent as we passed. But none
of these things moved him. He seemed oblivious
to all scornful treatment. He had as kindly a smile
and as cheery a face and word for the next poor
person we met, as though nothing had happened.

My father was a better educated man than almost
any of his neighbours. Not that he had been sent
to any other school than the one in the village, to
which the squire's and rich farmers' children alike
went, but he must have been either more studious
or else had better abilities. Such men by character
and conduct did a great deal towards the enlighten-
ment of England. Spoken against on all occasions

8 MARY SMITH.

— as they were by careless church-going people,
and the dissolute of all classes — shrewder observers
did not fail to note that they lived more consistent
lives, and displayed greater knowledge and thought,
than others who filled similar stations in life.

But before passing to speak of other things, I
deem it better to try and recollect something of
these Nonconformist divines, Mr. Hood and Dr.
Styles, who changed the current and character not
only of my father's life, but that of many around us.
Mr. Hood — whose preaching led to the somewhat
rigorous adoption, as it would be now thought, of
Puritan piety and practice — was a man, as was Dr.
Styles, of a beautiful simplicity of life and conver-
sation and unostentatious piety. In private life,
both men were blameless, studying in much oppo-
sition and unprovoked abuse, to give offence to no
one, however rudely they might be assailed by
others. They were men of gentle speech and
manners, very unlike the haughty vicar, who walked
through the village as the lord and master, and to
whom the poor women and girls made their pro-
ioundest curtsies, and the poor men and boys their
most abject and servile bows.

CROPREDY. 9

But the secret of these noiseless evangelizers of
England was their earnestness, their deep-rooted
enthusiasm and sincerity, which became in time to
be felt by their hardest and vilest calumniators. Mr.
Hood went from the small chapel at Great Bourton
to one near Birmingham ; and whoever may have
had the good fortune to have heard John Angell
James preach at Carr's-lane Chapel, Birmingham,
has heard the same style of preacher, and seen the
same style of man, only largely magnified. Still
there was a great similarity. Their object, end,
and spirit being to win the hearts of their hearers ;
and both alike had that even flow of soft persuasive
eloquence so winning in its effects and bearing.

The roughest of the villagers sometimes acted as
partisans of the church, and the vicar was known to
be intolerant and even violent against any one
presuming to teach or preach outside its domain.
On one occasion, a young Primitive Methodist had
the courage to attempt to preach in the village
street I remember it well, though considerably
more than fifty years ago. He came from another
village about two miles off. It was a fine moonlight
night in winter, and we were aroused from our

10 MARY SMITH.

family quiet, by an unusual noise as of a violent
crowd. After pausing to listen, my father rose and
took his hat, walking along the village street to see
what it could be. As usual, I ran by his side, and
we soon reached the scene of action. A rather
slender young man, with a beaming countenance,
and an open bible in his hand, was standing under
the hedge by the road ; while from the lower part
of the village all the roughest and wickedest rabble
had gathered around him with sticks and stones, and
were using vile language and assuming threatening
attitudes. Had my father not come up at the
moment he did, it is impossible to say what the
consequences might have been. He at once took
his stand beside the young man, and in a few words
encouraged him to go on. My father's calm and
determined manner awed the rude multitude, and
as he persisted in standing by him till all was over,
the rabble subsided into quietness or else slunk
away.

I was very young at the time, but I still remember
how earnestly the young Primitive prayed, kneeling
on the bare ground, that fair moonlight night, my
father standing guard beside him, with the rough

CROPREDY. 1 1

restless crowd seething in front of them. Such
scenes as these are now for ever at an end in our
villages. Dissent has helped to evangelize the
fox-hunting, wine-bibbing vicars almost everywhere;
or else ritualism has taught them to furbish up the
old church weapons, and interest the people with
new and singularly bizarre services.

Fifty years ago, church-going meant little more
than keeping on good terms with the vicar, and his
obese satellites, the churchwardens, at the small
inconvenience of spending a sleepy hour in the
high-backed crimson-cushioned pew at the old
parish church on a Sunday. Neither Tractarian
nor Puseyite had as yet made itself felt; and in
town and country alike, one dead dreary level of
formality prevailed. No one expected anything
new or striking. The vicar's pompous pronunci-
ation of his read discourse, roused no one to listen
or to think. The only sentence clearly heard being
the final one, "Now to God the Father, God the
Son, and God the Holy Ghost," which bit of ortho-
doxy woke up alike the poor sleepy, hard working,
ill-fed, and ignorant village labourer, and the squire
and his haughty dame (unobserved in their cosy
slumbers) in their high-backed pew.

12 MARY SMITH.

These, I have often thought, were the earnest
and true days of dissent of every name. They
were stung into faithfulness by the persecutions of
the church. A broad line of unworldliness separated
them from their neighbours. The Methodists had
already one of their little chapels at Cropredy. A
rich miller, more liberal and less prejudiced than
most people, had allowed them to build, up a lane
behind some property of his. But this little place,
notwithstanding its obscure position, prospered and
grew amazingly. Truly Methodism has done a
blessed work in England. There Sunday after
Sunday came men without education, mostly farmers
and small tradesmen, sometimes even labourers,
from the villages round, who, in spite of their
defective school training, had reverent and enthusi-
astic audiences, and whose unlettered eloquence
created the deepest impression on their hearers,
and often effected the great change of the ** New
Birth."

I well remember the earnest style of a good old
Methodist farmer, who came occasionally to preach
in the little chapel, of whose piety no one had
any doubt, though some might smile at his fervid

CROPREDY. 13

oratory. I can see him now, in my mind's eye,
his partially grey scattered locks hanging over his
temples, overshadowing soft gray eyes, which were
forever changing with his changeful utterances,
from the sternest utterances to the most tender
looks.

I went regularly, at an early age, to the Method-
ists' Sunday-school, and received many lasting
impressions there. I still remember with gratitude
many good men and women who were teachers
there, hard workers during the week, but at their
post on Sundays, with beaming faces and genial,
loving hearts. They knew little of what the world
calls learning, but the great spiritual truths of
religion had a deep hold of their hearts. I
delighted very much in that Sunday-school, and
believe it helped to bias my mind for many good
impressions.

CHAPTER II.

A child's education begins early. We might say
with its first breath, but certainly long before it
goes to school. Left as I was, being only two
years old when I lost my mother, I had to amuse
myself anywhere, so long as I could be kept out of
mischief Hence I was often in the shop with my
father, who had at that time in his employment two
brothers, very nice religious men, named Thomas
and William Hunt, the former consumptive, a great
reader and naturally studious. As a child, I was
very fond of this Thomas Hunt. He was very
gentle and quiet, for a working man. I remember
him telling little amusing rhymes, which always
delighted me. On occasions when the shop was
clear of customers, my father and he were sure to
be busy talking of abstruse matters of theology, or
discussing questions of doctrine, or the various
"views" of popular preachers whom they had heard.

CROPREDY. IS

During these discussions, Thomas would be sitting
at his bench and pursuing his work; while my
father stood at the cutting board, a long board
which hung by hinges, where he usually stood
cutting out various kinds of boots and shoes.

As a child of five or six, I was delighted with
the quietude of the place, wherein, for instance, I
soon learned the difference between man and man,
and early felt something of the calm uplifting which
these exercises diffused. The sharp beating out of
the leather on the lapstone, by no means interfered
with the discussion, which still went on, or was
taken up again, in the pauses of this cheerful noise,
seeming, by the way, to lighten the labour which
never for a moment ceased.

I cannot remember the time when I could not
read, although I can remember much while very
young. I must have been about four years old
when I was sent to school. I recollect my father
sometimes coming to meet me at twelve o'clock at
noon, on a path over the churchyard, and seating
me on his shoulder to get a ride ; his head bare,
and his happy face bright with childish talk to his
little *' wench." This was a dame*s school, kept by

1 6 MARY SMITH.

an old lady, sister of one of the freeholders of the
parish, who lived in a large, rambling, dark, old
house, adjoining the churchyard; where the sun
rarely came, and where the older boys sometimes
caught owls in going home, among the dense masses
of ivy with which it was covered. Indeed, so thick
was the lane leading by it, that it was commonly
called "Hell Hole."

The old dame at the school was a very antique
specimen of humanity. She wore an old-fashioned
thick muslin cap of Queen Elizabeth's day, the
plaited border of which met under the chin. She
had a low bodice, wearing a coloured handkerchief
under, and sleeves to the elbow, while the half skirt
hung bobbed behind, with a blue striped thick
woollen Jersey apron, that nearly met around her.
Such was the old dame's dress, morning, noon, and
night. It seemed to match with her dark house,
and with the ample cornered fireplace, by the side
of which she always seemed to sit. She had two
little forms, which were the sum total of her school
furniture ; and from these seats she called, one by
one, all the little ones to her knee to read. She
sometimes pinned them to her knee for punish-

CROPREDY. 17

ment, and always wore the same hard look of stern
authority.

I never remember to have had any lesson or
tuition at all at Dame Garner's school. From a
little incident that occurred while I was there, and
which I have always remembered distinctly, as the
first moral impression I received, I infer that I
could even then read well enough to make out the
real sense and meaning of an ordinary book. I sat
a silent observer on the form by the dark window,
sometimes picking up a stray leaf of one of the old
torn primers, the only books which the old dame
had in her possession. Thus it came about. One
afternoon, being in school earlier than the rest, I
had got hold of one of these fragments, which had
on it a little hymn by Dr. Watts. Simple as these
lines are, they seemed to penetrate my very soul,
and were never afterwards forgotten.

When Music's daughters shall go by,
And you no music hear.

Possibly I sat on the old dame's forms with the
rest of the little children for a year or two, but I
have an impression that I learnt nothing or next to
nothing during that time. She kept all quiet ; and

1 8 MARY SMITH.

did her little household turns before her scholars —
setting out her tiny cups and saucers, and her
equally tiny teapot, on her three-legged table by the
fireside, without cloth or tray. Well do I remember
the old dame's brimming cup of black tea — milkless
and, probably, sugarless — which she drank before
us all, her face as dark as the darkest day in winter.
No smile was ever seen to illuminate her stern
countenance, from the time of our arrival at school,
to the time we made our curtsies and hurried out
of it

Nearly sixty years have passed since I sat in her
snug and sunny orchard, a little child among other
children, of whom but one or two of many are now
left ; and yet how real it all seems — my youthful
companions and playmates flit before my vision, and
the central figure of all, the old dame herself ! One
windy morning, however, when creeping slowly to
school, we were told that our old mentor was dead,
which sad tidings — in the prospect, probably, of
escaping from the thraldom of the school room —
set us all rejoicing. Such is childhood !

For generations our family had been of the same
trade — that is, boot and shoe makers — as I learned

CROPREDY. 19

from an elder cousin. It originated, as he stated,
in a family of five brothers and two sisters, some
two centuries before. Thomas, who was a shoe-
maker, built the house in which I was born. Of
the four other brothers, one was a cooper, another
a woolstapler, another a farmer, and the fourth a
banker, having been manager for many years of the
old or Cobbers bank at Banbury. Thus from this
simple ancestry, it will be seen that for two centuries
my father's forelders had lived entirely by trade.

I was about seven years old when "granny"
died ; and I well recollect the funeral, at which we
all followed in village fashion. We had an under-
taker, who brought us lutestring and crape paste
board bonnets, and we had new black merino
dresses. A fussy nurse, who dressed us all upstairs
for the funeral procession, told us what we had to
do, and how to behave ourselves. When we had
got our gloves on and were nearly ready, she
brought us white pocket handkerchiefs, which we,
as children, had not been used to have. When
she came to me, I asked her what it was for. **0h,
to cry with, to be sure," she said. "They'll all
have them, and you must do as the others do."

20 MARY SMITH.

"But I shall not cry," I said, "and so I shall not
want it.*' But she persisted that I must have it, if
only for a make belief to hold up to my eyes. This
was enough. Realistic child as I was (she most
likely called me an obstinate one), I positively
refused to take it. But I was often called " queer
and like nobody else," by women we had about the
house, who w^re not used to my wanting to know
the reason why of everything.

That funeral left us a troubled family. We had
now to leave the old ancestral home, which had
become endeared to us by long years of joys and
sorrows. To it my father had brought home two
happy brides, with whom he had spent years of
peace ; and there children had been born to him,
that had endeared their union, and brought joy and
gladness to their hearth. There also in the early
days of his married life had he, under the blessed
influence of that religion — which created all things
new, which makes crooked things straight and
rough places even — bowed his knee in prayer as a
regenerate man, in the presence of that holy Being
on whose side he had solemnly decided to stand
and serve for the rest of his life. There also he

CROPREDY. 21

had great sorrows, which had had their sanctifying
uses in keeping him tnie to God and heaven.
From this house his first wife had been borne to
the silent grave, and a little boy of some four years
old (drowned in the canal) had soon been laid
beside her.

Now the dear old memories were to be broken,
the dear old associations scattered as by a sudden
stroke. Some of my father's relatives were very
different people to himself, vindictive and covetous,
who thought nothing of annoying him and putting
him to all sorts of inconvenience. For long months
we were a troubled household ; they wanting to get
possession of the house, and we having none to go
to. At length, however, a comfortable family resi-
dence, with large garden and orchard, and two or
three cottages attached, was to be sold in the upper
part . of the village. This my father bought ; and
with many alterations, and some necessary additions,
it became our final family home.

At this new house we were pleasantly accommo-
dated, not, it is true, with any pretentions to gentility,
as it was only a thatched one ; but my father after
awhile, as he was able to afford it, had the roof

22 MARY SMITH.

taken off, and the house raised and slated. The
roses and honeysuckle clustering in fragrance and
homely beauty over its walls, consecrating long
years of dear peaceful happy life, we as children
once spent within it. The Puritans, indeed, were
not, so far as I ever knew them, either a gloomy or
morose kind of people.

For the first time in my life I became acquainted
with song singing, from a washerwoman, who came
once a month to do the "big" wash. She was a
merry sort of a woman, with twinkling eyes ; and
was always ready to be coaxed to do anything for
my gratification, though she knew it was not allowed.
She would put on a grave face in a moment, if my
father happened to open the back kitchen door,
and enquire who she had there, which he often
did, knowing my liking for Bet's songs, I suppose.
Indeed, I have known her try to hide me behind
the big tubs, saying, "No, master," in answer to his
enquiries, pretending after, when I rose up from
my little stool, that she did not know I was there

All this I knew to be wrong, but still found my
way to the kitchen when she was there, as she had
a great store of songs popular at that time, but quite

CROPREDY. 23

new to me, which I delighted to hear. She sang
them with a clear lilting voice, without much tune,
for which I did not care. I could hear every word,
and soon got them all by heart. Thus "The Lass
of Richmond Hill," "The Gallant Hussar," "Rory
O' More," "Sweet Jenny Jones," Bailey's charming
"Isle of Beauty" and "I'd be a Butterfly," and
others came to be known to me, and dearly loved.
Often when the washerwoman was working late I
would sit in the kitchen, on winter nights, on a low
stool, pretending to be watching potatoes roasting
under the copper ; but in reality to get Bet to sing
me all the old songs over again, entreating her
often to sing very low, lest my father, who was in
the shop, might hear. This she did to please me,
satisfied most likely at my childish liking for her
songs, which none of the other children seemed to
care much about.

Poor woman ! many years after, when I was at
my father's house on a visit, she came to see me
"once more," as she said, but time had indeed
wrought changes in her. The once merry twinkling
eyes had both been taken out, leaving hollow empty
eyeless sockets, over which lay her folded locks of

24 MARY SMITH.

mournful grey hair. The subdued expression of
the features seeming to express submission to God's
will, all so changed and altered from what she was
when she lilted merrily over her washing-tub. Such
is our life ! But I owe it to her to say, that for
good or ill, she was one of my early teachers in the
matter of verse, which, whether in hymn or song,
from childhood always fascinated me.

But during this troubled period, when I was
about seven years old, I had been sent for a few
months to another dame school, where I learned to
knit and sew, the sole object for which I attended.
It was a parish school, and was visited by ladies
from the vicarage. It was kept, as most village
schools were kept then, by a woman, who, by some
disease or other was unable to move from her chair
or lift her hand to her mouth. Yet she had a
robust look as she sat from morning till night in the
large chair, her great white stick, which reached to
any part of the cottage floor in which the school
was held, standing constantly beside her.

Her knowledge was very small. The girls had a
lesson once a day in the New Testament, and the
little ones read out of the '* Reading Made Easy.''

CROPREDY. 25

But knitting and sewing occupied nearly the whole
time of the girls, who perhaps might average from
nine to ten. I was a diviner of spirits even then,
and did not admire the mistress. I saw she was
passionate and partial and very pharisaical. I do
not remember to have had any lessons there. I
could read well enough any book at that time,
thanks to my inordinate appetite for knowledge.

One day the ladies came, and called up all the
readers in the Testament, and I had to stand up
with the others. After reading two or three chapters,
the ladies proposed to ask us some questions, which
they did, of a very easy kind. I stood and returned
answers to everything they asked, no one else, easy
as they were, even trying to do so.

When all was over, as was natural, the ladies
asked who this little girl was who had answered so
well. The mistress told them my father's name,
and the significant exclamation was, ''But he does
not attend church !" Hence it followed that I had
no commendation. I was, however, promised a
reward, which I afterwards received in the shape of
a New Testament. But for all that, it was evident
I was looked upon as an alien. They never con-

26 MARY SMITH.

descended to speak to me whenever they came;
and I on my part was, I fear, too reserved in the
matter of behaviour, taking a delight in omitting
the profound curtsies which the village children
never dared to miss giving, when any of the vicar's
family came into the school, or appeared anywhere
in the street. I did not learn this from my father,
who ever spoke in the most respectful and concili-
ating manner to any of them.

Settled in our new home, I was at once taken
from this school, having acquired the useful arts of
knitting and sewing there, for which I had been
sent. I was now a girl of eight years of age, with a
great love of books and a very good capacity for
reading. My poor mother looked upon reading,
even when I was a little child, as a species of idle-
ness ; very well for Sundays or evenings, when baby
was asleep and I was not wanted for anything else.
As a last resource mother would tell my father.
But dear, good, loving father, as he was, always
took my part on this point, saying, "If the child
does nothing worse than that, it is not very bad."
Then addressing me, he would say, "My little
wench, you must mind and hear when your mother

CROPREDY. 27

calls, and do what she bids you. There will be
time enough for reading afterwards."

In my earliest years, I used to spend my half-
pence at the small lollipop shop in the village, in
buying "Cinderella," always a delight to me, "The
Babes in the Wood," "Jack the Giant Killer," etc.
These I read clandestinely. I early acquired a
sense of what was considered wrong in this
direction at home. I was always a solitary child ;
could play alone dressing dolls, or at ball, or hop-
scotchj in which I delighted. I often stayed playing
by myself on some paving stones in the churchyard,
through which I went to school, making myself
much later in getting home than I ought to have
done.

But whatever I did, I always felt that my father
was right, and what he did not allow or approve
was wrong. His rule was my law of right, and my
conscience was established on that practical law of
Right, which I saw every day enforced with fewest
words into his life. In regarding his word, I
regarded an absolute and unimpeachable authority,
which I never doubted ; and perhaps the real worth
of religion to nations as well as to individuals, might

28 MARY SMITH.

be found in the true rule of the family. In fact,
true religion constrains loving allegiance, as it did
in our home; all of us being united in common
love toward our father.

It was about this time that I was sent to a higher
grade school, kept by two ladies, at the wharf.
Gropredy wharf was on the Oxford canal, which
flows through there; the wharfinger at that time
being a Mr. H., who with his two daughters. Miss
H. and Mrs. B., and her young son, occupied a
large square brick built house at the wharf. The
two ladies kept a school of some pretensions, having
a few boarders, and at which all the farmer's and
tradesmen's daughters in the villages around, were
educated. This family at the wharf were Methodists
of the truest type. The father, a true christian
gentleman ; and his eldest daughter, Miss H., forever
remaining in my memory as the highest example of
an intelligent christian lady it has been my lot to
know personally. She was, perhaps, indescribable
— not at all beautiful, but slender, stately, self-
possessed, and lady-like, with a sweet, generous,
condescending smile.

Even now, when more than half a century has

CROPREDY. 29

passed away, how vividly I can see that sweetly
natural, yet saintly face, worn with pain and suffering,
over which she seemed ever to triumph; as also
that of the father, whose snowy white head and
calm, dignified, yet patient face, always impressed
me as something of the divine. His words were
few and very quiet, but always kind. There was
no pomp nor pride. He never thought of what his
dues were from others ; could not, as his kindness
was the same alike to all, both rich and poor. His
placid smile fell on all alike. He was everywhere
and always the same, as when on Sundays he
reverently stood up to worship with his face to the
wall in the small Methodist chapel in the village.

So I was sent to this school at the wharf, very
much to my heart's delight. Correct and lady-like
manners were considered to be almost the be all
and end all of a girFs education. This great and
absorbing attention to manners, new as it was to
me then, attracted my attention, and commanded
my respect. At our home, gravity, order, sub-
mission to elders, and respect to superiors, were
enforced ; but we were taught to obey and do what
was right because it was so.

30 MARY SMITH.

But though I continually made mistakes and
often forgot myself, I had always a great admiration
for persons possessing and practising excellent
manners, and rarely formed a friendship with any
one in my after life who was not blest with this
accomplishment. Human nature pays for cultiva-
tion, and good behaviour beautifies childhood and
youth, as well as dignifies age. I seemed in a
new world with companions reduced to such fine
orderliness, such prompt attention, such willing
obedience. But rigid rule was enforced upon all,
notwithstanding appearances.

It was indeed a very good school ; thoroughness
being the aim in the few things that were professed
to be taught, as well as almost faultless discipline
and good manners. A girl's education at that
time consisted principally of needlework of various
descriptions, from plain sewing to all manner of
fancy work and embroidery, including muslin and
net, on which we worked or flowered squares for
the shoulders, veils, caps, collars, and borders;
likewise a multitude of things not in wear now,
but then considered very necessary. Parents were
prouder then of their daughters* pieces of nedlework
than of their scholarship.

CROPREDY. 31

I believe my father would have wished it different,

but it was usual to consign a pupil to the sole care

of the governess, to direct and guide as she might

deem fit and proper. So I was educated according

to her idea, not his ; the only exception made being

that I might be specially put forward in arithmetic,

which was done accordingly. Every afternoon,

therefore. Miss H., my favourite teacher, came to

the school room door and called me to her in the

sitting room, where she sat with her father, and

there in that blessed quietude, with my kind

teacher's help, I unravelled the mysteries of long

division and compound addition, quite as much as

it was thought necessary then for girls to know.

Arithmetic was much more thoroughly taught to

girls in Scotland and the North of England, and in

most other branches of learning, as I found some

years after. A blessing it was, that at this school

we got no frivolous notions of life and its great

duties, and that we had before us living examples

of the sweet influences of religion and morality.

My special delight was in the learning, small as
it was, that was then taught. I took much interest
in flowering net and embroidering muslin, but less

32 MARY SMITH.

in canvas work, at which I was always slow. But
we all travelled through one groove, however diverse
our tastes might be. Thus I did an endless quantity
of embroidery and flowering, children's caps, muslin
aprons, and many other things ; as well as a teapot
stand, with a tiger in the middle ! The canvas of
the last article being very fine, I drew it up and
spoilt it, and had to begin afresh, which cost me
many tears.

What long months I worked at it— and how I
hated it — but it was all in vain ! For long years
Englishwomen's souls were almost as sorely crippled
and cramped by the devices of the school room, as
the Chinese women's feet by their shoes. I had to
go on with this hateful employment. " It must be
done, and done well," I was told, which I fully
realized. I never remember to have been praised
for any work I did, though I did a great deal.

But I had my delight in going early into the
school room, while the rest were at play, sitting in
its grateful quietude, reading over and over again
such class books as the "Pleasing Instructor,"
Magnall's "Questions," Goldsmith's "History of
England," etc., all new to me. The "Pleasing

^v

CROPREDY. 33

Instructor" I liked very. much. It contained a
selection of articles from the best English authors —
Addison, Steele, Dryden, Young, Pope, the Taylors,
etc. Hitherto I had had no opportunity of reading
such books. Any I could get hold of being for
the most part children's books, with the exception
of religious ones, such as Boston's "Crook in the
Lot," Doddridge's "Rise and Progress," and others,
which I had duly pondered to try to make them
out, not always with success.

But here was a book I had a faculty for. These
authors wrote from their hearts for humanity, and I
could follow them fully and with delight, though
but a child. They awakened my young nature,
and I found for the first time that my pondering
heart was akin to that of the whole human race.
And when I read the famous essays of Steele and
Addison, I could realize much of their truth and
beauty of expression. Poetry in the form of songs
and hymns had, almost as an infant, attracted me.
Pope's stanzas, which I read at school as an eight
year old child, showed me how far I felt and shared
the sentiment that he wrote, when he says,

34 MARY SMITH.

Thus let me live unseen, unknown,

Thus unlamented let me die ;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.

I had no companions, or at that time very few.
I never talked of reading, though when I went into
the cottages I hung over their quaint old pictures,
and their few tattered books, such as the ** Seven
Champions of Christendom," " The Good and Bad
Angel," and old Catholic legends, about which I
had a world of questions to ask. One intelligent
woman I specially remember, who had seen better
days, and whose parents had been Roman Catholics.
From her I got many an old legend and story, and
she it was who first told me of monks and nuns and
abbots.

I used to like to sit by her table, and, while she
was busy doing up pasteboard bonnets, ask her
questions about the old Catholics and their times,
of whom, before, I had known nothing. I liked to
hear her stories, which interested me deeply, for
"Mary Gardner" was no common woman. Not
that she herself was a Catholic. At that time she
attended the same chapel as my father did, and was
a woman who had passed through many afflictions.

CROPREDY. 35

Many of her old adages I well remember, especially
one in reference to our impatience about the rain,
which kept us indoors. At such times she would
say, "Hold your tongues, children! It's raining
victuals to-day!" I put this phrase into verse
many years after, and published it in the papers.

CHAPTER III.

One of my Sunday-school teachers at this time won
my admiration. Though only a young man, he was
so sincere and devout a Methodist, that he was
universally respected, and acknowledged even by
the wickedest, to be what he professed to be. I
went to the Methodist Sunday-school in the village,
near my own home. One Sunday morning, I do
not know how it occurred, another girl and myself
transgressed in something, probably in laughter.
I never could resist the infection of that sort of
thing ; and as the teacher was a strict disciplinarian,
we were ordered to remain when the others were
dismissed.

All having gone, he called us before him, and in
the tenderest tones asked if we would remember
for the future, that the all-seeing eye of God beheld
us. With tears of deep contrition, I took his
proffered hand, and determinedly answered "Yes."

CROPREDY. 37

Then he knelt down with us, and in deep and
fervid utterances, in which tears choked his voice at
times, he prayed that we might be kept true to God
and our promise, and from ever falling into sin
agaiii. I left him, a sadder but a wiser child,
always regarding his deep prayer as one of my first
religious experiences, and ever after regarding him
with affectionate reverence as one wholly good.

I have recorded this simple incident as having,
in after life, very much influenced my own mind in
punishing any of my pupils. I saw that the good
effects of punishment result entirely from the calm,
pure, loving spirit in which it is administered. My
teacher's punishment made me a better girl ; roused
my thoughts to the evil of doing as others do, and
made me feel sorry that I had given others pain.
So when it came to be my own turn, many years
after, to stand at the head of a school, I invariably
adhered to the practice of keeping delinquents in
school for a short time after the rest had gone, to
any other mode of punishment, finding by this
method I could better effect a kindly alliance with
the offender.

In proof of this, I once remember telling a girl

38 MARY SMITH.

of ten or eleven to write a verse after all were gone,
for some fault committed, and having spoken a few
earnest words to her, I left the room. On coming
back, I took her slate expecting to find the verse —
but it was not so. She had written, in the form of
a child's letter, her deep sorrow at having grieved
me, and promised to do sq no more. On seeing
me reading it, she threw her arms around my neck,
and shed a flood of tears. I kissed her and wept
also.

This shows that the events of my childhood
made a deep impression on me ; that I was a keen
observer, in after years adopting what I thought
was good ; and, above all, that a deeply religious
character always attracted my veneration. Punish-
ments were then different in ladies' schools, as in
the one I attended for example. To stand erect in
a comer for an hour; to wear a frightfully ugly
dunce's cap, standing on a stool ; and similar chas-
tisements were constantly occurring. Once only I
occupied the stool.

Some ill-natured school girl fixed upon me the
making of a great noise, while the governess was
out As a punishment I was set on the stool, with

<:kol»REDY. 39

this horrible cap on my head, opposite the window.
A sensitive child, I was overwhelmed with grief,
especially as I was quite innocent ; but in vain I
protested. I was not even noticed, which injustice
— child as I was — I thought the worst part of all.
At last, seeing how dreadfully I cried, a little girl
stepped up to the governess, and with a deep
curtsy, said that I did not make any noise, but was
sitting reading on the form (my usual custom).

I was then taken down ; but I never forgot it.
It was a hateful ordeal, robbing a child of its self-
respect, which should always be kept inviolate, if
at all possible. I remained at this school for
several years. I liked it well; revolting against
nothing but the endless fancy work that I was
made to do.

However, to my great delight, one day my father
came home, saying he had been at a sale, and
had bought a lot of old books. They were duly
brought, and laid down on the floor; a lot of
tattered books of all descriptions ; novels, histories,
poems, plays (including some of Shakespeare's).
He had surely thought of his little girl, who was
80 fond of books, for he was too busy to look them

40 MARV SMITH.

over. He ordered them to be taken up into the
attic. But as soon as unnoticed, I began to
examine and purloin some of them, hiding them
away for future use. I read the batch I retained
with great dehght, finding books or parts of books
of a description quite new to any I had read
before.

Especially I remember an old copy of Kirke
White's "Remains," which I read over and over
with great delight; and, perhaps, from him and
Shakespeare, I learned to love classical poetry.
My delight, which I kept to myself, was inex-
pressible. I never said anything to anybody about
my love of books, always feeling rather condemned
than otherwise about it. Whenever I had done
what work I was set to do, my chief pleasure was
to slip away unobserved into some quiet spot,
where all unseen I could read till the last glimmer
of day was lost in the lonely night. Often and
often on wet evenings, or on Saturday afternoons,
when released from household work, I would creep
quietly up to the attic where the books were kept
which was entered by a trap door.

So time ran on, and though I was taunted by

CROPREDY. 41

nearly all the family, except my father, as being
**always reading," I did, in reality, a great deal
beside, for ours was a busy house, and idleness was
a thing not to be tolerated in any one of us. In
books, or work, or healthful play, our first years were
certainly passed, and perhaps this was the reason
why in after years, I could always lay the most
fascinating book down at any moment.

In the winter evenings, we had all something to
do ; and my lot was mostly to go with my father to
the leather room, and hold the candle for light
while he cut the thick cow-hides into soles for
boots and shoes. Many a kind word did he give
me on these occasions, asking after my school work,
and guiding and encouraging me as to what I
should do. Blessed times they always were, and
fiill of instruction ! I ran willingly with him,
knowing he would tell me all manner of pleasant
things ; what I should try to do, and what avoid ;
speaking to me rather as a woman than as a girl ;
quite aware of all my odd ways.

Early I became the companion of my father,
still hanging on his hand, and walking with him to
his chapel at Great Bourton on fine Sundays, which

42 Mary smith.

was a mile off; and as I grew older, to the other
places around, to hear special sermons, to missionary
meetings, public breakfasts, soirees, etc.

So when yet a girl, I heard the great missionary,
William Knibb, describe the freeing of the slaves
in the isle of Jamaica, on the memorable first of
August, which I shall never forget. I still re-
member well how intensely I listened, though my
feet would not yet reach the floor from the high
pewed seat. I can see that brown emotional face
yet, as he told the pathetic story of the liberation,
and how they watched the hours together till
midnight; how he and the other missionaries
marched in procession at the head of the liberated
slaves, to a grave which had been dug, and into
which grave each one cast his chains and fetters,
with shouts of joy and triumph. He told also, with
glowing features, of numerous processions, on the
first free day, through the towns, in which the women
tossed their babes in their arms as they danced
and shouted — and the great missionary concluded
by saying, "And I should have danced too, if I had
only known how 1*' This address was delivered at
Banbury, about four miles from our home.

CR01>REDY. 43

The nonconformists of these times had a passion
for hearing noted preachers ; and my father knowing
my delight in this special class of oratory, often
took me with him to hear some celebrity of this
kind} the distance sometimes being so great that
even by hanging on his arm, I could hardly get
along, I was so tired. So I heard Eustace Carey,
Howard Hinton, Dr. Franklin of Coventry, and
others; also a remarkable sermon preached by a
Welsh nonconformist, named Jenkin Thomas. In
those quiet days we talked of such things in the
country for weeks together.

Soon after this time, a cousin of ours died, and
my father bought an old four-wheel pony trap. In
this conveyance a party of us often went together to
meetings. Occasionally, too, we visited my own
mother's family in Gloucestershire, with whom, as
they were nearly all Baptists, we had a close and
constant intercourse. My uncle Newth, a small
farmer, corresponded with my father, mostly in
rhyme. His rhyming letters, as I always remember,
were hailed with great delight by us all. They were
read aloud by my father, to our great delight, till

44 MARV SMITH.

we became quite intimate with them, and were able
to repeat certain parts.

My mother's sisters and their families, all farmers
— Charles Newth and Cornelius Farmiloe — attended
Shortwood chapel, Nailsworth, a very large Baptist
chapel, with stabling and out-houses for horses and
conveyances. Connected with it was a fine burying
ground, where my uncle Farmiloe had a vault, in
which his family were buried. They often had
eminent Baptist ministers and missionaries at Short-
wood. My uncle Newth wrote to my father on one
occasion :

I wish you*d been here the first Sabbath in June,
We had Pearce from Calcutta, both morning and noon,
And likewise a Burchell to swell out the tune
Of worthy the Lamb that was slain.

By these rhyming letters we were all set rhyming.
My father often essaying to write back in rhyme.
An old and dear nonconformist friend of my father's,
an educated and intelligent man, a Mr. George
Atkins, who attended at Bourton chapel, some-
times wrote rhyming letters to my father and
Uncle Newth. I still remember a bit of his rhyme,
in the form of a note to my father who had asked
him to dinner.

CROPREDY. 45

With your kind invitation, I could not comply,
If you read these lines, they'll tell you for why ;
The loss of my pocket book filled me with care,
The rascals bereaved me at Banbury fair.

Hearing these letters and notes read, I got to
write bits and scraps of rhymes, while yet a girl.
I remember writing valentines for my sister and
one of her companions. A gay young fellow
persisted in paying bis addresses, which they
wished to cease ; and to try to effect their purpose
I wrote some repellant rigmarole ending thus —

With your dandy hat and boots so fine,
You shall never be my valentine.

This was my first essay in rhyming for a purpose,
and was kept strictly secret from all but those inter-
ested. My uncle's rhyming letters gave me the
first impulse. AVe all admired him, not only for
his rhyming abilities, but for his stern noncon-
formist principles, in the defence of which he never
wanted either a rhyme or a reason.

Happy times we all had at our house, when my
uncle and one or two of my cousins came to see us,
travelling out of Gloucestershire in some big lum-
bering old conveyance, over cross country roads,
and in some places where there were no roads at

46 MARY SMITH.

all. It was always late in the day when they came,
but we had good fires and pleasant welcomes for
them. As for conversation, these religious folks
reaped harvests that supplied talk everywhere, both
profitable and pleasing; and their anecdotes and
stories were endless, often, I fear, told at the
expense of some luckless clergyman or his more
luckless clerk. Our relatives stayed with us, on
these occasions, for a few days or a week. Then
our house put on its best garniture, everything,
though plain and humble, being very clean; and
all was good humour and good behaviour.

In a country home like ours, we had a great
delight in seeing fresh places. I early got a love
of fine scenery, from my father pointing out the
hills and Druidical stones of RoUright, the hamlet
of Burdrop, and other places, as we travelled into
Gloucestershire, etc. But through all these years I
was still, as ever, a book worm, rummaging for
books wherever I went. So whatever book I found
I read, good or bad, keeping hid the doubtful ones
from every one's sight. In this way I remember
reading the life of Doctor Faustus, which I dared
not let anyone see, with the story of his traffic with

CROPREDY. 47

the Evil one, and how he helped him to the
invention of printing, especially of the Bible !

I also got acquainted — how I can hardly tell —
with a broken down family who had kept the
"Brazen Nose" inn, in the village. They were
not exactly such people as were approved of at our
house ; but in looking over their house I found
they had a great many old books, which they said
had been left by travellers staying at the inn. Any
of these they kindly lent me, and among them were
a great many I had never seen, mostly novels, but
some of them very good ones. There I found the
'» Vicar of Wakefield," the "Exiles of Siberia," the
"Castle of Otranto," and many others, including,
as I remember, some Methodist biographies, all of
which I devoured voraciously.

The vicar was a haughty man, and fully believed
in his right to rule the consciences of the parish-
ioners, but he rarely interfered with us. Neverthe-
less, there were exceptional times, and I remember
one day, just after an early dinner, the vicar opening
our street door — the rule then — standing with it in
his hand, and asking if we had not one or two
children old enough to be confirmed, as the bishop

48 MARY SMITH.

was coming for that purpose. My father, who
was sitting in his arm-chair by the fire, rose to
receive him, saying, **I have learned from the
New Testament that the apostles confirmed 'the
christians,* and must just say, when my children
are old enough to understand such things, they
must judge for themselves."

At this the vicar flew into a great passion, and
stamped on the floor, saying, "You will never do
as other people do." To this my father replied,
" In anything else, sir, in which I can oblige you,
I shall be glad to do so ; but my children must
decide for themselves." With this his reverence
slammed the door, and went away without any
word of courtesy. My poor father looked tried and
put about on these occasions; but I as a child
witnessing such haughtiness and passion on the
part of a minister of religion, felt all my young
spirit in revolt against a church, whose minister
came to the people in the name of pride and
passion and custom, rather than in the spirit of
Christ ; striving as a pope to overbear and overawe,
rather than as a christian minister to instruct and
enlighten.

CROPREDY. 49

Once when a child, on my governess setting me to
learn the church catechism, my father had written
all round the margin of the book, "Popery! Popery !
please don't let the child learn this." This I saw
to my consternation, when I went up to her the
next morning, and at which she smiled as she
closed the book. Things of this kind, in due time,
became clearer to my apprehension, and helped to
make me a sturdy nonconformist to the end of my
days, as my father had been before me.

CHAPTER IV.

But many things in our old way of life now came
to an end. My father, in consequence of business
losses, had twice canvassed for the office of relieving
officer and registrar of the district ; the second time
with success, notwithstanding his dissent This
had led to his giving up all his ordinary business.
My eldest brother and I were consequently placed
in a shop which had been previously taken on the
Oxford canal in the village, to which the shoemaking
business was likewise to be joined. We were both
young for such an important undertaking. The
serious ways of our home life, somewhat intensified
by family trouble, probably added more than a
share of deep thoughtfulness to my youthful appear-
ance, which led strangers to suppose me older than
I really was. My woman's life in reality commenced
from then, and I might even say before then, for I
divined, if I did not tell all the family secrets, and
shared all its sad troubles.

CROPREDY. 51

How deeply thankful we all felt for my father's
election to the ill-paid post of relieving officer. I
well remember our regarding it as a special provi-
dence, as an intervention of the Highest on our
behalf, the sudden turning of the clergy, his sworn
foes, to vote for him. There was no loud singing
of Te Deums at our house, but much quiet and
devout thanksgiving, unheard by any human ears.
It was early spring. Ash Wednesday followed the
week after, and we were all surprised to hear my
father say he was going to church. I always shall
see the reverent devout form standing erect there,
giving all the responses, without book. At last
coming to the Magnificat, then, with the full
emphasis of a truly thankful heart, he lifted up his
voice, and said, "My soul doth magnify the Lord,
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour, for
he that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is
His name."

It seemed as if he had come there to show his
gratitude before the congregation, and to testify
with devout heart what great things God had done
for him. This may seem a small matter, but it has
always seemed to me an honourable struggle with

52 MARY SMITH.

poverty. Unpaid bills were an intolerable burden
at our house, to be ended the soonest possible
way, not by modem bankruptcy, but by honestly
paying them. In this way, in a few years, every
bill was met, and though we were never rich, the
family honour was never soiled by unpaid bills.
In his new office, which he held for twenty-one
years, by persistent thrift and diligence, he cleared
everything, and had a trifle to leave us all at his
death. Long and reverently I could linger over
the memory of my dear father, the best man whom
I have ever known, the one still the best loved of
my life.

My boast is not that I deduce my birth
, From loins enthroned, or rulers of the earth ;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise —
The heir of parents passed into the skies.

My life had now become a very busy and
responsible one, for one so young; but I had
profited by our family troubles, and my brother
agreed with me that we must refuse credit to all
doubtful customers. So our shop soon righted
itself. My brother led the men in his own depart-
ment, and with little guidance I managed the
grocery and provision shop. In the intervals of

CROPREDY. S3

custom I did much, if not all, in the house, as well
as keeping the books. Finally, I got handy and
expert in making articles of wearing apparel, dresses
for myself and younger sisters ; indeed, anything to
save expense. My brother and I did all manner
of things to advance our tardy fortunes. He kept
bees and pigs; and I kept poultry, which latter
brought me in a certain amount of pocket money.
Work was indeed our life, and so anxious and
conscientious was I, that I soon got to make
children's frocks, both for our own family and
others, by sitting up late in the evenings.

Once I remember — on one of these nights —
to have seen a poor young fellow buried, at twelve
o'clock at night, in the outskirts of the churchyard,
in front of our shop. There was then no christian
burial for the poor suicide ; no bell was rung nor
service said, nor any of the beautiful formulas of
the Church of England burial service used. A few
poor men (perhaps his brothers), with horn lanterns
let him down into his silent grave, as I saw standing
at our door; while afterwards the heavy clods of
earth which rolled rapidly down over the coffin, in
the silent night, seemed awfully weird and melan-

54 Mary sMItH.

choly. Thank God there have been and still are
human hearts in this great world, who have changed
all this; and the poor suicide is now reverently
pitied, and has sweet words of holy hope said over
his forlorn grave.

This hard work was good for me. I felt that I
was useful and helpful; too much engaged for
harbouring idle thoughts or vain dreams, yet still
cherishing aspirations after something beyond the
limits of my power of definition, or the depth of
my dreams. But this did not make me unhappy.
It kept me silent, reserved, shy, and without any
desire for intimacies with thoughtless, gay girls.
My friends at this time were a few of my old
schoolfellows, in better circumstances than myself,
who persisted in their attachments to me. I was
still the managing spirit in all our childish schemes
of amusement at their big farm houses, or excursions
on long summer evenings, or on holiday afternoons
over the farm, or up the sweet bowery rural roads
in quest of violets or primroses, or the more deli-
cate cowslip, which, (obeying the mandates of the
mothers,) we gathered in large handfuls for making
cowslip wine of.

CROt>REDY. 55

Very delightful to me were these rambles through
the sweetly scented lanes in spring, when fields
were rich with gay flowers, the beauty of the year.
Pleasant undying memories have ever hung around
them. They attracted us together then : and now
all my old school companions are dead but one,
who is in South America. Fifty years ago she
became the wife of a young man, whose father left
him a plantation on condition that he would go
there and live on it. I feel that that was the only
pleasurable period of my whole life, having nothing
in it vile or selfish; the sole object in all our
schemes being to carry out some idea of childish
fun.

O happy time of childhood ! when small troubles
enhance future pleasures — pleasures which are the
one abiding joy of a long life ! Before the jealousies
and envies of life begin, all is new and untried, and
neither they nor I saw far into the great life of the
world, or thought for one moment that the things
we had read thereof in books were not true. One
girl, whom I loved very much, and who had the
rarest roses on her cheeks, was the first to fall.
She became a faded memory, with a name written

56 Mary smith.

merely on a grand stone in a village churchyard.
Another and yet another of these bright young
girls, did I, with six others, all dressed in pure
white, according to the custom of the time and
place, help to carry to their graves. The old
churchyard has many mementoes of bright school
friends who have perished in the march of life.

All my old friends, who came to see me in the
first years at the shop, marvelled at my busy life.
Still as time flew by, and I became seventeen,
bits of romance crept into my life, as is common to
all of human kind. Yet even here I was hardly
Hke the rest. I objected then, as all my life long,
to women lowering themselves to coarse jesting,
loud laughing, and especially to the objectionable
rudeness of village youths and maidens. Shy and
silent and reserved in my manners, I was much
offended at all looseness of behaviour in others. I
thought then, as I have taught ever since, that a
woman can be a lady without money, and that
parents and teachers should prompt her to be this
truly in the interest of morality and virtue.

The washerwoman and other women we had
about our house, when I was a girl, used to say.

CROPREDY. 57

"Mary must have a minister. She reads so much,
and is so grave, and can tell you all about things."
And I think I liked the idea, though I said nothing.
But I had neither time nor inclination to think of
these things at the shop. My one ambition was to
get our family free from debt. So while other girls
at my age were an expense to their parents, I am
free to say that I rendered mine all the assistance
in my power. I was not without selfishness either,
and liked to exact whatever respect I could from
the rude element which surrounded me.

My brother had a friend who oftener came home
Mrith him than I liked, and who brought things as
presents which I was too shy to reject, though I
showed they gave me no pleasure. As he was a
lad of good prospects, my father spoke to me about
him one day. He said I surely could find something
to say to him, adding, he would like to see me with
someone who really cared for me. To this I replied,
I did not want him, and could work for myself.
Quite true, but not quite easy, as I afterwards found
out. Yet I never regretted my action.

My father had always been fond of having minis-
ters about us. We had them often calling and

S8 MARY SMITH.

Stopping to tea or dinner. One Baptist minister
from Gloucestershire sometimes stayed for weeks
together, going away on Sundays to preach at
various chapels, while waiting a "call." He was a
clever man, from Shortwood, who finally settled at
Northampton. I once went with my father, in our
old trap, to spend a Sabbath with him and his
family at that place. The first railway in those
parts was then in course of formation; and I
remember we called to see it on our way home.

This Mr. Ashmead, the minister, had anecdotes
for evermore of his student life at Bristol, under
Isaiah Birt and others, familiar to Baptist ears.
One I recollect of a certain youth, named Caleb,
who was a great talker, and very fond of spending
his evenings in some pleasant friend's house, and
getting let in by some friendly student after hours.
One dark night after the usual signal, the door
opened, and Caleb skipped in as usual, turning a
pirouette as he snapped his fingers with the words,
"Nick'd it again, Caleb!" when the voice beside
him said quietly, "Not so fast, young man. Isaiah
has nick'd Caleb this time !" It was the principal
himself, who having got wind of the thing, had sat
up on purpose to give the student a surprise.

CkOt>REDY. 59

One fine summer afternoon, not long after we
had been at the shop, as I sat by the window, the
Hon. W. Parker — who was canvassing the county
of Oxfordshire for ParHamentary votes — suddenly
sprang into the house, by the open door, and stood
before me with a train of gentlemen (the village
freeholders) behind him. A tall, handsome young
man, wearing a white hat, which he did not take
off — he enquired for my father, who had a vote for
the county. I stood up in my schoolgirl way, with
gravity and respect, and replied my father was not
at home. He said he wanted my father to vote for
him, and as he was out, he urged me to speak for
him. I stood silent. He then began to coax me ;
and in a moment, before I knew what was going to
happen, he kissed me, and fled ! Bewildered and
indignant, I resumed my seat; but, young as I
was, all my nature rose in revolt against him. His
presumption offended me most acutely. I felt I
was not an ignorant nor a giddy girl, to be pleased
with any such undue liberties.

Possibly this little incident helped in after years,
to make me more energetic in my speech and
writings against the insidious treachery of the

6o MARY SMITH.

Tories. Many a strong letter did I pen in Carlisle,
against Tory tactics and disestablishment, which I
hope helped to show those who read them, some-
thing of their fallacious and misleading pretensions.

There was a great need of an earnest minister in
our village ; but sad to say, as is often the case in
factory towns, the rude element of drunkenness
and riot, oftener becomes one of scorn and oppo-
sition than of penitence and religious conviction.
So it was in our village. A son of one of the
old dissenting families, who regularly attended the
chapel, had become awfully dissipated; had left
his father's comfortable home, and become a sad
drunken sot, unfit for any decent society. Every
effort made to reclaim him had failed. Well do I
remember, one Sunday morning, the quiet chapel
being fluttered in the midst of the service by the
once bright, well dressed youth coming in, and
making his way to the top of the gallery — a fearful
prodigal — without hat, or coat, or waistcoat, or
shoes, or stockings !

I had for two or three years been deeply im-
pressed that my life of indecision was wrong. I
felt that my apathy to religion was not right. At

CROPREDY. 6 1

times, I very much condemned myself for my
novel reading, which I knew my father would
utterly condemn. I more than once vowed to give
it up, but never did. Indeed, one evening I went
to the extent of shutting myself in my bedroom,
and there writing down a number of resolutions as
to my future conduct, which, alas ! I never kept.

Our chapel at Great Bourton was up a lonely
road, between two villages, yet whatever the weather
might be, or whenever the chapel doors might be
open in the dark wet nights of winter, I was sure
to be there, often with a sad desponding heart. I
hoped some good word spoken there might bring
me light and peace from on High, For this end I
continually prayed, though I said nothing to any
one, nor did any intrusive religious friend, as they
do among the Methodists, try to probe my wounds,
and tempt my utterances on the subject. My
father's religion was pre-eminently a silent one, and
the people at this little chapel were all of them very
much so, though still of the kindest. Pleasant
quiet smiles, and kind "How do you do's," they all
had, as in country fashion they swayed your hand
affectionately horizontally backward and forward.

62 MARY SMITH.

enquiring for friends at home, or making apt
remarks about the weather.

Then, as in Cromwell's time, the big clouds of
despondency and contrition darkened the spirit for
months, often till the still small voice of mercy and
forgiveness, like a ray of sunshine out of a heavy
sky, cleared the vision, and made every sound
become one of glad hope and blessing. So I kept
on my way through this dark time, saying no word
to any one, not even to my brother, who, like me,
was on his way to the wicket gate. We had both
been very much impressed with those Sinai thun-
ders, those terrors of the law, which we had heard
in the sermons of our young preacher. I remember
my brother rising from his chair one Sunday night,
and saying seriously, " Shall we have a few words
of prayer, before we go to bed?" I had been
longing to say the same thing, but was deterred by
my old shyness, and therefore acquiesced with
silent gladness.

A decided mystic as I have been all my life, I at
this time doubtless was passing through some of its
inexpressible phases, and found deeps within deeps
of what seemed to mc inextinguishable sorrow, for
as Goethe sings :

CROPREDY. 63

Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,
Who never spent the midnight hours
Weeping and wishing for the morrow.
He knows you not, ye heavenly powers.

In the winter, when the snow lay thick on the
ground, I have known my father send me word
from his room by mother, not to think of setting
out till he was up, and able to go with me. Other-
wise, in a usual way, I rose early on Sunday
mornings, and went with my brother to the early
prayer meetings, held at eight o'clock. These
walks were very pleasant through the spring and
summer, when all around was fair and beautiful,
but in the winter when no foot had invaded the
lonely roads after a deep snow, or in the cruel
winds or pouring rains of late autumn — through
which we went nothing daunted — they were different.
So much so, that an atheistic farmer, whose gate we
passed, used to say we were "mad." Be that as
it may, it was the most divine infatuation I ever
felt, and of which I never once relented or grew
weary. I gave up all. The earrings were taken
out of my ears, the coral necklace laid aside, and
the flowers and bows from my bonnet. It was a
joy to me to give them up. Saint Theresa could

64 MARY SMITH.

not have delighted more in the cross than I did. I
had, in fact, learnt that grandest of all lessons, to
low lie in the Lord's hands, and to feel that every
step downward is a step upward. Till then I had
never known how sweet life was, bereft of all its
ambitions and earthly strivings.

CHAPTER V.

A GREATER soiTOw than I had ever before known

now befel me. I was cut off from my old busy life

of the shop. Things had improved, and my brother

had married. After staying a few weeks to put

everything in order, and initiate his wife into the

mysteries of shopkeeping, I went home again to my

father's house, as he desired. I had worked hard,

but had had no wages. Few girls in their teens

worked so self-denyingly and resolutely as I did

then. I knew, indeed, the worst was past ; and in

a few years the family ship righted itself, every bill

being eventually paid, and every account settled

But for myself, as is often the case with women,

even the most capable and energetic, the one small

event of my brother's marrying had stranded me

without occupation.

The September following, I was publicly baptised

by immersion, with ten others, my brother and the

minister being among the number. Like the min-
L 5

66 MARY SMITH.

ister, we were under conviction of the scriptural
obligation of this rite and mode of its administra-
tion ; and resolute to fulfil all righteousness, I had
become enamoured of the idea that I should thus
publicly witness my attachment to my dear Lord
and Saviour. We were baptised by the minister
of the chapel, before all the congregation, in the
morning of the first Sabbath in the month. In the
afternoon, I sat down for the first time with the
members of the church, to the ordinance of the
Lord's Supper.

As a young religious enthusiast, I expected I
know not what manifestations of the Spirit, in
fulfilling these ordinances. I fear I had a sense
that in making such a great sacrifice, I should also
have some return of special blessing — (a return
which poor human nature always looks for, con-
fessed or not) — but I was disappointed. I felt
nothing, and was certainly determined not to pre-
tend that I felt anything ; so, while I observed that
the men and women around me bowed their heads
and covered their faces, I, hating the faintest shade
of hypocrisy, sat bolt upright, listening to all and
observing all, but by no means complacent with

CROPREDY. 67

myself that I could feel no more. I was seeking
religion in the outer form, rather than in the living
spirit, which it takes years to learn and experience ;
and writing this to-day, after forty years have passed,
I now regard ordinances with no more appreciation
than a Quaker does, feeling that the sublime spirit
of Christ's life should inspire more than a sentiment,
should live in more than a ceremony, and that it
should beget deeds like His, to renew, and purify,
and inspire the world.

A few weeks after this, I went with a cousin to
visit my mother's relations in Gloucestershire, prob-
ably determined on by the fact that I was then at
liberty to do so, having, since I left my brother at
the shop, no definite business occupation. My
cousin was to be married, and when that event was
over, I had to return to Cropredy. After visiting
about for several weeks, the year was getting dark
and sad. My uncle Thomas' large family of girls —
there were ten of them, all at home — were looking
forward to Christmas, and had already made me
promise to stay till then. They were a happy
household, living at Tetbury, a small market town
in the west of Gloucestershire, where my uncle

68 MARY SMITH.

Thomas, recently dead, had been established some
years as a grocer and cheese factor. Treated with
especial kindness by my aunt and elder cousins,
and with mingled love and respect by the younger
ones, who seemed to like me all the better for being
so serious and silent, I was quite at home in this
busy orderly home, where no servant was kept.
My aunt, a handsome stately lady of few words
and commanding presence, insisted that each should
take her place and part in the domestic duties of
the house.

A few weeks after, in the midst of our busy plans
and purposes, I was surprised to receive a letter
from my father, sent on from my last address, in-
forming me that our minister and his wife were
leaving the Cropredy neighbourhood. Being con-
nected with the Baptist Home Missionary Society,
he had been appointed to Brough in Westmorland.
My cousins, seeing me crying as I read the letter,
came round me with sad faces, asking what was the
matter, expecting to hear some one was either ill
or dead. When they found it was only the minister
going away, girl like, they thought that was nothing,

CROPREDY. 69

and protested I should stay as I had promised till
after Christmas. But this was not to be.

I set off on my homeward journey on foot, and
found myself silently following a tall boy, in a
clean white smock frock, who was carrying my box.
Gloucestershire is a lovely, picturesque county, and
the afternoon was an exquisite one, being fine and
dry and silent about the middle of November.
Ever)rwhere there was a sad melancholy breath of
wind, at times, stirring among the leaves and
hovering among the great branches by the roadside,
as if to show how surpassing beautiful they were in
their rich variegated autumnal dyes, and how re-
splendently they decorated the peaceful earth.

So with sad and silent thoughts, my guide and I
arrived at my cousin's, who had been in Oxford-
shire with us. There he had learnt Lis trade,
and there he had married his wife. Consequently
I was received very kindly by both of them,
and entertained very hospitably; but I fear I
was a depressing guest. Having been apprised
we should find my brother George at Chafford,
my cousin drove me in his lumbering old gig
— which most farmers kept in those ante-railway

7© Mary smith.

times — starting early on the Monday morning.
Arriving there we found George, and were soon off
again, pursuing our slow way over rough cross
country roads, over hill and dale, and lessening the
distance, as we constantly felt, between us and our
journey's end. Young and strong as we were, we
grew somewhat worn out and weary with our long
day's travel and some of its less pleasant incidents
— twelve hours and more in coming sixty miles,
with only a stoppage of half-an-hour now and then,
to bait the horse !

Getting a good night's rest at home, I was on
foot early next morning, with my father, journeying
to the residence of the minister, Mr. Osborn, two
miles or more away. He was leaving that morning
for Westmorland, and my visit was to be a last
farewell, as I thought. We got there before day-
light, and found busy preparations were being made
for the minister's departure. It was arranged —
with my father's consent — that I was to stay to
keep Mrs. Osborn company, during her husband's
absence.

Some time after preaching his trial sermons, he
received a "call" to become minister of the church;

CROtREDY. 71

and then wrote to my father and myself suggesting
that I might perhaps be willing to accompany his
wife and baby to the north. This proposal came
upon me with great surprise, as I had never once
thought of such a thing. With our untravelled
village ideas (before the opening up of the great
central railways of the country), Westmorland was
as far removed almost to the rustic "southron"
intellect then, as Sydney is to-day. I remember a
neighbouring farmer, in a white smock-frock, re-
marked to my father, in broad Oxonian, that he had
"heerd that 'twas a very mountaineous countree."

I soon became reconciled to the journey, and
was delighted with the idea of seeing places of
which I knew nothing but the name. But my
father ; how should I leave my father, whose love
and tenderness I had never had reason to doubt ?
Under a calm countenance, he, on his part, hid a
deeply troubled heart. For three nights, as mother
told me, he could not sleep nor come to any
decision. At last he consented that I might go
and stay three months, and then return home. So
I left Cropredy on these conditions, but I had a

72 MARY SMITH.

presentiment that I was going to return no more,
which proved too true.

Well then, I was going to the north, and conse-
quently all at once became an important personage,
indeed, much more so than I wished to be. Every-
body I met or saw had something to say or ask
about it. Whoever had heard of this outlandish
place, Westmorland, or had ever heard of or seen
any one who had ? But the weeks flew past, ending
all this village talk, and much else beside.

The railway between York and Darlington had
already been opened, and that also between
Birmingham and the north; therefore, our plan
was to travel to the latter place in a light van,
under the care of my brother George, while Mrs.
Osborn's furniture and luggage followed in another
van. We left Oxfordshire on the 2nd of February,
1842, when I was within a few days of twenty years
old. We were up very early that winter morning.
But early as we had to start, we did not leave
without observing the time-honoured rule of our
home, namely, to have a word of prayer before
parting; and, as my father used to say, put our-
selves under the protection of Providence.

CROPREDY. 73

So that morning, our early breakfast over — the
last thing before the horse was brought out — we
stood there altogether, once more to sing a parting
hymn, before our long and tedious journey com-
menced, into a country we knew nothing of, and
unto a people we had as yet not seen. The broken
strains of heavenly words entered our souls, and
softened all our hearts. Solitary neighbours and
cottage women, knowing that we were to start that
morning, stood outside by the yet lighted window,
all anxious to say a last good bye, and all mingling
their own devout wishes for our good. There was
quite a congregation when we rose from our knees ;
but there was little said. Our hearts were full.

The neighbours who had not yet got up to see
us off, hearing the wheels turn on to the road,
opened their chamber windows at which they stood,
and called out their good byes and God bless yous
to me. My father mounted me on our old pony,
as he intended walking a few miles on the road.
Eight miles he walked by my side that morning,
drawn on partly by its bright pure air. Many a
tender counsel was given, many a wise hint

74 MARY SMITH.

dropped. Dear father ! he knew much more of
the world than I did; and finally we parted.

We were soon at Birmingham, where my brother
saw us all right for York, en route for Darlington.
As it was a fine bright day, we were much taken
up with viewing the beautiful country through which
we passed. Being the first time I had seen or been
in a railway carriage, I was not without some sense
of the gravity of our position. I especially shud-
dered, and held fast by something, every time we
cut through an arch, thinking the peculiar crashing
noise very frightful; perhaps turning pale, as I
remember a clerical looking gentleman, who rode
in the same carriage, remarking to Mrs. Osborn
about my seeming to be afraid.

But all went well. My fears were needless ; and
my experiences of railway travelling on that first
day, were very pleasant. The one great difference
between then and now being the small number of
passengers travelling with the train, and the greater
quietude of the stations. There were but single
lines laid down then, and it all seemed such a
private affair compared with the great bustling
crowded centre of anxious and stirrmg people it is

cropredy. 75

to-day. What autocrat ever conferred on the world
such benefits and blessings, as the hero of Chat-
moss, George Stephenson ?

We reached Darlington about nine o'clock the
same night, and thought it a special providence,
that a quiet looking man came to the carriage door,
and asked if we wanted lodgings. He offered to
conduct us to his house, which we both (taking
note of his honest countenance) readily accepted.
We found his home very clean and comfortable,
and his wife a bright cheerful woman, who soon
got us a substantial tea after our long day's travel.
In retiring to rest, what was our joy to hear the old
familiar sounds of earnest prayer ascending from
the ground-floor, where the family apparently knelt
in devout worship, before retiring for the night.
These sounds quieted every fear of evil, which our
being in a strange place had tended to excite.

We had to start at eight o'clock in the morning
by the coach for Barnard Castle, and thence to
Brough. To our dismay, we found there were rival
coaches running, one only of which went through
to Brough. They both protested, speaking in a
dialect of which we knew little or nothing, and we

76 MARY SMITH.

did not know which to believe. Our host, who
had come up with us, pointed to the right one ; but
the other declared he was going also that day;
took possession of our luggage, and crammed Mrs.
Osborn and her baby inside the coach, there being
no place for me, but on the top. Shouting defiant
words to his rival, off we drove. I had little doubt
afterwards the other driver was saying that I should
be frozen to death, riding on the top of the coach
over Stain more on such a day, and that he would
be guilty of my death. I believe this would have
been the case in reality, had the man not pulled up
at a roadside inn, and brought a glass of steaming
brandy and water, and insisted on my drinking it
right off.

The cold was something awful at that elevation
for any human being to bear, much less a thinly
clad, fragile woman from the south, unaccustomed
to the northern temperature. The fact is, that
when we got on to Stainmore, I seemed absolutely
to have no clothing on, and the piercing winds
blew through and through me with such rigour as
to be quite terrific and appalling. I kept my seat,
crowding head and knees together as best I could

CROPREDY. 77

for warmth ; and though at any other time I should
have refused the offer of brandy and water, I took
it eagerly, feeling that I must do so. When we got
to Barnard Castle, the people at the inn told us
how we had been misled. We went on to Brcugh
by the other coach, and I had the privilege of going
inside with my friends. My experience of riding
on the top of a coach over Slainmore, in the early
part of February, was never forgotten.

CHAPTER VI.

We entered Brough by a long and slowly-descending
road. It lies directly under mountains where are
lead mines, which yield profit and employment to
its inhabitants, whose chief occupation is mining.
It is, or rather was — for it is now forty years ago —
a lonsj street of uncouth, white-washed, and many
of them one storeyed houses. The largest and most
handsome of these were the two posting houses,
Macgee's and Kilvington's, with a few shops in the
lower part, of very unpretending aspect, drapery
being exhibited in one window and grocery in the
other. The thrifty inhabitants thought it prudent
apparently to ensure making the two ends meet, by
being as comprehensive as possible.

There were converging rows of clean, comfortable
looking houses, in some cases of superior appearance
and pretensions, branching out from the principal
street, and scattered far about. Smaller houses also
everywhere, near the beck, ran parallel with the

BROUGH. 79

mountains we had crossed. The beck, a shallow
yellow stream, flowed, as many of them do, from a
great height, over a broken rocky bed, and rattled
down with noisy clamour on stormy days. Church
Brough, as its name denotes, is where the church
and vicarage are; then a rather dismal, quiet place,
at which a few old people only seemed to live ;
functionaries of the church and beadledom gener-
ally. In this remote place, with its rigorous climate
and consequent poverty, dissent held the first and
foremost rank ; and the church, though a very
handsome one, seemed to have been relegated to
the background.

Our days of travel had been fine dry ones ; the
snow still lying thick and spotless on Stainmore, as
it usually does all winter long, and even far into
spring. Our friend who had preceded us thither,
was at the coach door ready to receive us. But
had we been Esquimaux, the curiosity of the
younger part of the people in the street could
hardly have been greater, so rudely did they press
into our very midst, staring in our faces and
watching our every movement. And what struck
me on that, and many other occasions afterwards,

8o MARY SMITH.

was that they talked about us in our hearing — not
only young people, but men and women also— as
though they thought we should not know or under-
stand what they said. I suppose it was because
they could not understand us, which we found at
first, on some occasions, they did not.

Mr. Osborn was staying pro tern with one of the
most conspicuous men in the town, the mining
agent, who was a Baptist. It was but a small
house, with a window at the back, looking over
the brawling, yellow beck. The entrance was by
folding doors— with glass at the top, and brass
knocker — opening in quite a stylish kind of way,
into a rather broad lobby, which door gave persons
on first entering, the impression of its being a much
more commodious house than it really was. But
among those primitive people, we soon found it was
considered quite a genteel residence ; and we our-
selves, coming from the thatched roofs of our native
Oxfordshire, thought so, too, as it had to us the
great merit of being slated.

The first night, our new house — notwithstanding
our united efforts to reduce its chaos to something
like makeshift comfort — came far short of our real

BROUGH. 8 1

needs and desires. One of the Baptist members,
coming in and seeing our difficulty, suggested that
I might sleep at his sister's, who was Squire Hob-
son's wife. It was at once decided to accept this
kind offer, if confirmed ; and our new friend sallied
forth up street, to his sister's. He was soon back
again, with a favourable answer.

Young and strong, and good sleeper though I
then was, I was cold on going to bed, and cold I
remained all the night through, counting every
hour, till at length wearied out with wakefulness,
I listened for the rising of the servant, which I
expected would be about six o'clock or soon after.
I determined that as soon as I heard her stirring, I
would rise and ask her to let me out. The fact
was, that we natives of the south were so imperfectly
educated at that period, that we knew nothing of
the differences of the climate we had to contend
against. Inapprehensive of this fact, we were far
too thinly clad for a journey to the north in mid-
winter.

Through this ignorance, I nearly lost my life;

as we afterwards found that the winter dress of

northern women differed materially from that worn
L 6

82 MARY SMITH.

by those of the south. In the old times, as I have
heard it said, the women of the south wore the
same clothing winter and summer, scorning to make
any difference, lest they should be thought to want
hardihood. Indeed, so far as knowledge went, we
had been very badly equipped for our journey,
none of the thousand springs of incidental hearsay,
between the far north and the provincial south,
being then in existence.

Consequently, for the first few weeks of our
residence at Brough, we were in a most awkward
predicament, quite as bad as though we had been
in a foreign country; knowing nothing of the great
difference in manners, habits, and modes of living
of the inhabitants; nor yet understanding their
grotesque dialect, — at least, to our ears it had a
grotesque sound with it — while the common people
of Brough seemed wholly inapprehensive of what we
said. Thus on the first day after our arrival, wanting
some additional furniture, Mr. and Mrs. Osborn
went to Appleby to purchase it, leaving me and the
baby at home, with a woman who lived in a cottage
close by us, to clean and put things to rights.

Never shall I forget poor Betty's consternation

BROUGH. 83

when I asked her to bring me different things, nor
her puzzled looks to understand what I meant. The
people of Brough used the same words for different
vessels. A washing pan or bowl being a "pot/*
and a saucepan, a "pan" only; almost everything
thus having a fresh name. When Betty failed to
bring what I wanted, she stood with anxious face to
see what the article was I brought when I went for
it myself, smiling good naturedly, as I did, at her
odd mistakes. Their's was, in fact, a more limited
vocabulary than ours, as I found.

Thus the word "pots," though very unseemly to a
southern woman's ears, was applied to all sorts of
things made of "clay;'' and Betty would ask, to my
astonishment, if she should wash the "pots" and
side them up, when she directed my attention to
the china standing on the tray, after having been
used at tea. In the same way she stroked the baby,
and called it a "piiir lal silly thing," and "an unco
bonny barne," which, but for her kindly honest face,
seemed very offensive terms. I had never before
then heard of "barne," but in connection with a
place with immense folding doors, used by farmers
lor storing and thrashing corn; nor "silly" but as

84 MARY SMITH.

meaning stupid or foolish. When I told them these
dialect phrases at night, and said that I thought
Betty meant it all in kindness, they laughed at our
conversation, and said they were sure /she did,
though she had an odd way of expressing it.

During my early days at Brough, I often went
into Betty's cottage on some trifling errand, and
was shocked one evening to see her pouring out on
a shallow platter, what I conceived to be ** pigs'
victuals" for her husband's supper, as he sat at the
three-legged table on which the platter stood, with
his mouth wide open to catch every word I said.
Of course, I reported all at home, with many pitying
words, sorry, as I said, that they were so very poor.
The next time Betty came in, Mrs. Osborn asked
her what that was which she made for her husband's
supper. "That's poddish," says Betty. ''They're
good. Ivvery body sups them here. Oor Isaac's
gey fond o' his poddish, but (pointing to me) this
young lady quite flounders him. He can't mak oot
what she says." At this we all laughed heartily.
However, we soon learnt that porridge was not
** pigs' victuals," although it looked very like it to
my southern eyes.

BROUGH. 85

We were long in getting into an easy apprehension
of the common talk of the people, and apparently,
they also of ours. Their loud emphatic tones
resembled those of talkers in a storm, who mean
patiently to say out all they have to say, notwith-
standing the fury of the wind ; which sounded to
our ears something very different from the soft
musical accent of the rapidly speaking Oxonians.
'J'his rapidity of speech, I suspect, it was that hin-
dered the people generally from understanding us,
and talking of us before our faces as though we
were foreigners, which they did persistently for a
long time.

A butcher and his son argued the question,
whether Mrs. Osborn or myself was "t' mistress,"
in the presence of whichever of us happened to go
to order the meat, much to our amusement; the
old man always protesting that I was the mistress
of the house, as I was dark and serious looking ;
and the son just as tenaciously holding that the
little fair one was "t' reet un."

But from the first, we were strongly impressed
with the genuine kindliness, honesty, and truthful-
ness of these people ; their readiness to render us

t6 MARY SMITH.

any little service, or inform us of anything relating
to their customs, etc., they thought we did not
know; or do anything, indeed, they could to oblige.
There was no trace, it is true, of southern syco-
phancy, so offensive and humiliating in the village
peasantry of the midland counties; no timid
curtsying of the women and girls, nor speechless
bowing and bare-headed reverence of the men and
boys to superiors. They were a race of hardy,
thrifty toilers ; and neither bishop, nor priest, nor
squire exerted any arbitrary personal power over
them; and this they showed in their personal
independence and freedom, as you continually felt.

But as a set off to their bluntness, and apparent
want of courtesy, you met with no make belief, and
hypocrisy was almost unknown, as were its twin
vices, sham and cant, the outgrowths too often of
our older civilizations. As a result of this, we soon
began to like these honest, hardy people, and to
appreciate and prefer their superior energy in char-
acter and action, to the more effeminate southern
whom we had left. These northerners we soon
found were more resolute, energetic, daring, and
courageous ; willing to learn to an amazing degree.

BROUGH. 87

SO long as what you wanted to teach them accorded
with these characteristics. They took nothing on
trust. But they were not great talkers: whoever
knew great workers to be so ?

The Baptists and religious people among whom
we principally moved, were silent to a singular
degree; both silent and shy. Some ladies, who
owned considerable property, and lived on their
own estate, being so shy that they rarely lifted their
eyes however long they talked to you, nor even if
they called on you; and yet they were fair, hand-
some, unmarried women. There were many of the
most devout and pious of the Baptist women, beside
them, who had this singular manner, reminding one
of the devout women of the early Christian ages,
when they foreswore the secular intercourse of earth
for the holier intercourse of heaven.

The men also were shy and silent, though not to
the same degree, but often quite painfully so. I
have heard a young student, who was once with us,
say, that in coming back from his round of this
circuit, he invariably met one of the members, who
was a farmer, at a certain point, and all that ever
he said was, "Travelling home again, are you?"

^8 MARY SMITH.

— every time just the same, and no more — though
he often stopped at the man's house to bait his
pony, as he passed it on the road.

In fact, we soon found we had come among a
singularly original people, of unquestionable sincerity
and an inflexible uprightness of purpose, and of an
unusual loftiness of religious aim and action. Hence
I was much invigorated and stimulated by their
intercourse, and their strong faith and religious
energy quickened and strengthened mine also. In
all things there was less talk than deed, and by
nothing that was done did they ever create the
impression that they wanted to attract attention to
themselves. Their temporal privations and many
hardships, their personal toil amid endless disap-
pointments, their cultivation and care bringing no
increase — or an increase too tardy to be of any
avail — such, for instance, as their never-ripening
crops, or their crops being rendered unfit to bring
to the barn door through inclement weather.
These and other perplexing trials had done more
to chasten and reconcile them to their fate, than
ever the asceticism of the anchorite, or the austeri-

BROUGH. 89

ties of the old world monks had done for the truth
and beauty of religion.

No people I had then, or have since met with,
have impressed me with having a religion so true
and pure and lofty as theirs. To me, who had
only recently given up the world, and vowed to live
apart from all its ensnaring fascinations, and who
had, like themselves, felt something of the difficul-
ties and disappointments of life, they were especially
interesting and soul-inspiring.

But to revert to my own more personal experi-
ence. I now began to feel that I had lost my own
dear home, the love and sympathy of my own dear
father, and that I was a stranger in a strange land.
The attention I had formerly received, when a
visitor for a few days only with my friends, gradu-
ally falling off, and altogether declining into nility
or sometimes positive coldness. This,' I have no
doubt, my father feared, and it was probably the
real cause of his objection to my going ; not that
he had any fear of my making myself a useful and
valuable help to them. He knew my self-sacrificing
spirit, and that I would eat no man's bread without
fully earning it ; but he also knew how poor the

90 MARY SMITH.

people were that my friends were going amongst,
and how small a salary the minister consequently
would have.

However, the members of the church soon seemed
fully apprehensive of my situation and its unpleasant-
ness ; and in proportion as they saw me becoming
anxious and troubled, manifested great interest in
me, and showed me much kindness ; not without
increasing the very evils, perhaps, which they, in

consideration of my comfort, wished to diminish.
But in all that related to myself, I was making no
sort of revelations to any one, not even consulting
with my father by letter, as I perhaps ought to have
done.

There was this at the bottom of it. I was now
very anxious, and thought it my duty, being twenty
years of age, to relieve my father altogether for the
future of any care on my account. I hoped every
day, perhaps foolishly, that something would occur
to afford me a chance of getting a situation. I had
had a presentiment all along, that I was to stay in
the north, and now I had become so prepossessed
with the lofty religious aspirations of these people,

BROUGH. 91

which was the primary object of my life, that I
longed to remain among them.

Happily money with me, only in so far as I really
needed it for necessary articles of clothing, was not
coveted then, as many other things were ; although
pressing needs in this direction, at times, made me
very sad. I sent no word, nor made any complaint
to any one, not even to my father, from whom I
thought it right to hide all my sorrows, showing
him the bright side only when I wrote, knowing
what a troubled, struggling life he had had for
many years. No, he should never know how
anxious and unhappy I was at times ; nor would I
send to him for money, for had he not long before
paid my expenses to the north ? And now I would
struggle hard to provide for myself.

So I set to work after I went to bed at night, in
the attic in which I slept, to repair and alter the
things I had, to the best of my ability, making
myself a dress out of a silk cloak I wore on Sun-
days, as I very well remember. Many a night, I
was thus employed till one or two o'clock in the
morning, only giving over when I could keep
myself awake no longer. Yet I was punctually up

92 MARY SMITH.

and down again at the usual hour, having the little
ones with me, and everything ready for breakfast.
They knew nothing of my extra midnight labours,
nor were at all apprehensive, I suppose, of my sad
reflections. But the spiritual discipline I gained
from it was great, and like the experience of the
saints of the middle ages, I felt myself continually
growing calmer and stronger under it.

On this account it was, I believe, that so much
attention and respect was shown me on all occasions,
by these deeply religious people, who instinctively
seemed to apprehend all my inner secrets, and
discern the meaning of my most private ideas.
They held that all should use their "gifts," as they
called it, at the prayer meetings, which we found
they did, women as well as men engaging in oral
prayer. Mr. Osborn insisted that his wife and I
should overcome our timidity, and do as the other
members did ; and one night at family worship he
got me to venture upon this untried duty. From
that time, he and others frequently called upon me,
and my confidence grew stronger every time. All
winter through they had the prayer meetings at the
members' houses in rotation, and very pleasant they

BROUGH. 93

were, a large bright fire being made up in the best
room for the occasion.

During the summer months, when agricultural
pursuits kept many members in the fields, if not
all, the meetings were held in the chapel. Then
the attendance was very scant, for these people
believed in being faithful in all things. At such
times, I have seen only myself and the doorkeeper
present. The doorkeeper was named Joseph, a
man of original character. He heeded not numbers,
and either gave out a hymn he knew, or asked me
to read one.

I saw much of Joseph, and felt as a child in the
presence of a good father. I attended many a
prayer meeting with him alone in the chapel there.
His striking prayer — as though in reality talking to
a loving parent, on whom he relied for help and

hope in all his troubles — was a great blessing to
me. He also encouraged me to pray, which I did
on several occasions. I have never forgotten the
quiet benediction which fell on my anxious heart, as
he bade me good-night at the chapel door, saying
meekly: "Bless the Lord! We have had a good
time to-night." Much of my capability to speak

94 MARY SMITH.

and lecture in public in after years, I derived from
using my "gifts," as these good people called it, at
the week-night prayer meetings, at Brough, in
Westmorland.

I also read a few highly instructive and, to me,
deeply interesting books while there. Dr. Thomas
Brown's "Moral Philosophy," and the "Elements
of Mental Science," by some Scotch metaphysician
whom I cannot now name, though it made a deep
impression on my mind at the time ; also Whately's
"Logic," and others. I should say here, perhaps,
that at this period, if not before, I always made a
point of making the contents of every book I read
my own. I had not time to take notes, nor did I
do so, but every page I read I earnestly endeavoured
to make myself sure of understanding. This
method of reading I found to be the best, as the
act of taking notes diverts, in some degree, the
mind from the subject.

There was one more book about this time, or
later in the same period, that made a profound
impression on my mind, the author of which indeed
became a great master, and was one of the moulders
of my life. This was Emerson, the American

BROUGH. 95

essayist. I was doing the usual morning dusting
in the room which my friend used for his study,
when I caught sight of an open pamphlet. I stopped
my work for a mom.ent to look at it. I found it
was the essay on Nature, lying open at the Christian
Teacher, I stopped to read the paragraph on the
Snow Storm. It was all I dare read. It woke in
my soul a thousand new and wonderful thoughts.
I could not forget it. I was so ravished with the
genial freshness and fertility of its argument, and
the rare spiritual unction flowing through it, that
whenever I could get a chance I read it over and
over again, till I knew it by heart as I knew the
Psalms of David or some of my favourite hymns.

Spiritual life I now saw was a fertile source of
intellectual vigour, as I have ever since found ; and
that the highest capacities of the soul interact that
"intellect is always holy: holiness always wise."
It was, in fact, a new spirit world, a mysticism, on
whose border I had been long walking and dream-
ing with indefinable fancies. I felt that I had
affinities with the highest in nature, and that all
heights of being and character were within my reach
and attainment.

CHAPTER VII.

My first school was at Brough in Westmorland.
While I had been working very hard in the minis-
ter's family, without either pay or thanks, for many
months, I was beginning to feel that after all I
should have to give up this vague waiting and
hoping, and reluctantly make up my mind to go
home again. When all at once (as though all the
thoughts of my inner heart had been known), I
was asked by several of the female members of the
church, whether I would teach a girls' school, in
case they could get a sufficient number of pupils.

At that time, there was not a girls' school either
in Brough or the neighbourhood. The only school
then in the small market town, being a private
school for boys, kept by an aged Independent
minister, in his own small cottage.

I was very shy and diffident, and pleaded inability
and want of training, etc. To these objections they
put forth that the girls were either very young or

BROUGH. 97

backward, through having had no "mistress" there,
as they termed it, for a long time. There was, of
course, much discussion on the subject; and I
found that everybody, even the minister and his
wife, when it came to the point of my returning
home, wanted to keep me in the north. Notwith-
standing my shyness and reserve, I soon felt I had
found great favour among these primitive people.
There were strong affinities between us, not only
spiritual but temporal. Faithful in all heavenly
duties, their religion included a due sense of faith-
fulness in every service unto mankind.

A tolerably large house chanced to be standing

empty at the upper or quieter end of the town ; and

part of this house was taken for the use of a school

room, etc. I rode over to Appleby one evening, on

Mr. Osborn's pony, to get a few circulars printed

by a man named Barnes, who kept a humble shop

there (neither printer nor bookseller existing in

Brough at that time). I began my little school

the following week. It seemed at first a very

unpromising affair, ruinous to my air castles mostly,

and trying to me in many other ways. I had got

rooms, but was entirely destitute of anything to put
I. 7

98 MARY SMITH.

in them. My upper room, where I was to live,
being as bare as ever was saint's cell, without the
saint's contentment and resignation.

Very small at first, my school gradually increased.
As I became better known, I had often grown up
girls whose education had been neglected. These
mostly came from lone farm houses, and were some-
times as tall as myself. Blithe, sonsie lasses they
were for the most part, willing and obedient, and
rendering me an amount of respect which I seemed
almost ashamed to take. I may say that my
grammar at that time was like that of country ladies
generally, very superficial; though in after life it
became one of my favourite studies.

The people of Brough at that time were not rich.
Mining and agriculture engaged the attention, and
in some cases divided the occupation of the people.

In consideration of this, I had been advised — as
my own conscience would have dictated — to make
my charges very low. Though I eventually got a
considerable number of pupils together, they did
ittle more than pay needful expenses ; and in the
early days of my little enterprise, I was often
reduced to the most straitened circumstances.

BROUGH. 99

Once, I remember, I had not a single penny left to
buy the least needful article of food, and was in sad
inward trouble as to what I should do. I tried to
settle the question, whether I should fast till some
one brought me some money, or ask Mrs. Osborn
to lend me a shilling.

I had never before asked for such favour, and I
reflected that she might not have one, or, if she had,
might not be able to spare it. It was Saturday. I
had no school, and was going down the street to
my friends' house on some errand — sad enough —
when one of my pupils came up to me and said her
mother had sent her to pay the shilling she owed
me. I need not say how my heart leaped up in
silent but devout gratitude to God for his goodness
that day, for I sincerely believed then, as I do now,
that it came from Him.

I helped myself by thus holding on. From the
first day of my leaving home I vowed that whatever
I had to suffer, I would try by all the means in my
power to keep myself from going back to the old
village life, where there was neither help nor hope
for a person of intellectual aspirations. Very hard
work and hard fare, week after week, and month

lOO MARY SMITH.

after month, such as I submitted to, was very
depressing, with no happy outlook of any kind
beyond it. No congratulatory eyes met mine then,
as in the old time, when I walked beside my dear
father, and felt in his quiet smiles both sympathy
and encouragement.

Coming from the south of England, as I did,
where Nature^s pictures, like those of the kaleido-
scope, were beautiful still, through all her many
changes and seasons, filling the soul with im-
pressioned dreams of radiant greenery and sylvan
loveliness — I never could like Brough, or reconcile
myself to that long dreary prospect of snow-covered
fells, which for more than half the year encompassed
it all around. Its inhospitable, ungenerous skies,
as I still thought them, never won me over to
delight, or kept my heart from sighing for a kinder
and brighter home. It was not a place to love,
nor to add to one's happiness. We all felt it was
only probationary, and held our peace. A morrow
would come, and for that morrow we lived. That
was a recognised fact on all hands.

With this feeling we got through our time, till
the third year, when an incident nmirred in my

BROUOH. lOI

apparently sad life, which might have had happier
results, with a less conscientious person. I state it
merely as an indication of my feelings respecting
marriage, which ordinance is now subverted to such
vile uses and abuses — women, in reality, being
bought and sold in the marriage market as in any
other.

One fine Sunday in summer, a young man, who
— as the preacher appointed for the day at Brough —
came to dine with Mrs. Osborn after morning
service, in the absence of her husband. I also was
there, quiet and retiring as usual, not presuming to
say scarcely a word, though I sat at the same table.
The young man was shy and silent. He was above
the middle stature, and having a deformed foot, he
walked with arms continually hanging down by his
sides, as if to balance himself.

A woman was to preach at the Primitive
Methodist chapel in the ^afternoon, and some of
the young people of the Baptist congregation had
arranged to go, and promised to call for me.

Mr. J on hearing where we were going, was

interested, and said he would go too. We formed
quite a company. On coming back| the merits of

tC2 MARY SMITH.

the sermon were rather warmly discussed, so much
so that the majority of the company sped on for-
getting that they were leaving Mr. J behind.

As he was Mrs. Osborn's guest, I thought it my
duty to wait, and walk by him. This I did as my
duty, talking to him in a friendly manner all the
way we went, for we were left far behind. It is
true I felt some reserve in doing this, knowing that
he was rich, and, in certain respects, my superior.

I went to my school as usual, on the Monday
morning. It had grown larger. Many older girls
came from several villages round about; and the
teaching of some thirty pupils occupied all my time
and thoughts. Much to my surprise, on Tuesday
afternoon, Mrs. Osbom sent me word that I was
wanted very particularly, and must come at once.
I set my school free, and then went down to her
house. She met me much more graciously than

usual, saying, it seemed I had captured Mr. J

on Sunday. I thought — though we were the most
realistic of people — that she was joking; and
persisted gravely that I was innocent of any in-
tention of doing such a thing. Then she told me
he had confessed all to her, saying, *' It is you he

BKOUGH. 103

has come to see, and no one else" — and added,
''you had better not be too hard with him : he is
so very shy.'*

There was, perhaps, some need of saying this, as
she knew how likely I would be to keep him at a
distance, as I did other young men. As a conse-
quence of her information, I refused to go down
stairs till she was ready, so that she might do all

the talking, as usual. Mr. J was an eccentric

man for his age, never having had any need to
work, and, owing to his deformed foot, hardly
capable of it. For this reason, and his delicate
health, he had been spoiled as a child.

An elder brother and he lived together on a large

farm ; and Mr. J rode about on a good horse,

wherever he went, on account of his lameness.
Being a man of thirty, and having his own will and
way in everything, you may imagine something of
what he was ; the quiet smile on his face being, to
a woman, the one redeeming feature in the tout
ensemble.

As religious people in a religious home, we took
tea very pleasantly together, but very quietly. I
for my part talked a little more than usual The

l04 MARV SMITH.

gentleman at length left to get his horse ready for
home, without making his wishes known to me
himself. It is probable, knowing I had no relations
there, he had spoken to Mrs. Osborn, expecting
that she would help him by introducing the subject,
but she did neither. However, as one blessed result,
I was treated with more consideration by my friends,
and the additional kindness was exceedingly wel-
come and consoling to me.

I was back at my school on the morrow after
this event, a little graver and more commanding, as
well as more absolute. The thought of having
been loved, always gives a woman new strength.
This little episode in my dull life at Brough, if it
did nothing else, made it somewhat pleasanter. It
showed possibilities — such possibilities being that I
might not remain a second Cinderella always. I
was now spoken to as an equal, and in some degree
allowed to take the liberties of one. The rude
hints I had often had to bear, from that time ceased.
Mrs. Osborn had herself heard the story, and knew
its truth.

A prospect of change came about this time. Mr.
Osborn had been sent to Carlisle to preach a trial

BROUGH. 105

sermon ; and a few months after he was appointed
to go there. This change was looked forward to
with great gladness. For various reasons, my
friends pressed me to go with them, knowing that
I, like themselves, had not been happy where we
were, nor had my school ever paid me. With the
utmost thrift I had, indeed, lived on the hardest
fare — brown bread being my continual diet, and a
bit of butter now and then my only relish.

My father was against my remaining at Brough
alone, so I at once decided to give up my school
and go. When all my little bills were paid me, I
found I had a few pounds left, as I had contracted
no debts. Out of this money I bought some
necessary articles of plain and comfortable clothing,
and thought myself very rich to be able to do so.
I had, moreover, five pounds left, over and above,
which my friends perceiving, made a point of
borrowing. In those days I did not need much
pressing. The fact that they were greatly in need,
and that I could supply that need, became a verit-
able certainty that I should do so.

CHAPTER VIII.

We started for Carlisle in Squire Hobson*s phaeton,
by which mode we rode to Penrith. From there
we took the coach to Carlisle, now more than forty
years ago, on a late autumn day, when the roads
were sloppy with rain, and the dykes choked with
a variegated compound of scattered leaves.

We entered the old Border city rather late m the
afternoon, and landed with the mail coach at
the ** Crown and Mitre," in Castle-street. Few
people were astir, and the city presented a very
uncompromising aspect. We stayed in Castle-street
over night, and in the morning went down to William '
street, Botchergate, where we had a comfortable
double house taken.

Mr. Osborn preached for the Baptists for four or
five years, at the Athenaeum, in Lowther-street (now
the Post Office), at the end of which time, the
Baptist Home Missionary Society, hearing that he
had become heterodox, ceased to pay.

CARLISLE. 107

There was plenty of employment for me in this
new home, where everything had to be adjusted
afresh, and a whole house put into order, with seven
souls to provide for — father and mother, three
babies, a young student, and myself. But after
the first week or two, things dropped into their
places, and the old use and wont was pretty much
established.

The Baptists at first were almost our sole visitors;
but what little we saw of the city interested us
much. It was above all so very untown-like; many
of the people so quaint, quiet, and slow; and hardly
any of them habitually bright, or brisk, or stately,
or with an air of superior intelligence, or breeding ;
and none of them had that portly pomposity con-
tinually to be met with among the wealthy citizens
of the south, or even among the village squires and
freeholders. The rapid speech, quick motions, and
sharp physique, with the distinct esprit de corps of
the market town of any size in the south, were
entirely wanting here, or at least it seemed so then.

They were tradesmen, money makers, very pos-
sibly rich, but they had neither the manners nor the
deportment of gentlemen ; and the same deficiency

I08 MARY SMITH.

was seen everywhere in the gentler sex also. Almost
anyone coming from the south, forty years ago,
would, I think, have been of the same opinion ;
and would have noted the absolute want of genuine
polish and politeness. I fancy this arose from
the large lordly heritages of the southern gentry,
squires, and farmers, who were mostly all large
freeholders, and in nearly every particular different
from the northern farmer. The southern farmers
were men of wealth. They sat in their parlours,
and were w^aited upon by servants. They knew
little or nothing of farm work, and their children
were educated by governesses, and sent to the best
boarding schools. Of course, they had been bred
gentlemen for generations; hence the difference
between north and south; especially the difference
between northern and southern towns half a century
ago.

The northern man, as a compensation, possessed
a richer and more fertile brain, a readier hand, a
stouter heart, and a courage to win kingdoms;
never a gentleman ; and yet it is noteworthy that
many of them possessed true nobility of purpose,
which had become a birthright to them through

CARLISLE. 109

the bold and enduring conquests of a long chain of
ancestors. So Carlisle was an entirely new world
to me, full of interest, it is true, but provoking a
world of thought ; and to a stranger, making every-
thing seen or heard an object of quiet reflection and
observation.

Carlisle improved on acquaintance. We found
we had come among a shrewd, ready-witted, and
dexterous people. We no sooner began to know
them, than we began to respect them. A self-
helpful, thrifty, and courageous people, I found in
them the very qualities and sturdy virtues I
most admired ; along with the sterling honesty,
truthfulness, and independence of the people of
Westmorland ; though with much less of their silent,
lofty, and fervid piety. This peculiarity of the latter
was owing to a great extent, no doubt, to their
seclusion, loneliness and privations, which intensified
and strengthened their ideas; hence arises, perhaps,
the lofty patriotism — a kind of religion of the people
— of mountainous countries.

The people of Carlisle excited my interest greatly
on every hand, by ignoring the amenities of society,
and following uncouth customs of their own, appar-

no MARY SMITH.

ently much preferred on account of old and dear
associations. Hence they carefully preserve these
customs, and their dialect everywhere survives the
Board School. The Lancaster and Carlisle Railway
was opened soon after our coming to the city, as
well as other lines, which have done so much to
develope and brighten it, as well as to extend its
boundaries. It has also mitigated the asperities of
the old city. The railway has materially developed
the life of cities and towns everywhere, making fifty
years of the present equal in many things to a cycle
of the past.

On coming into Carlisle, as a Baptist minister of
more than average abilities, Mr. Osborn attracted
many friends. His personal appearance, tall figure,
and steep piled up forehead, were everywhere notice-
able ; added to which he was a voracious reader,
mostly of theology and philosophy. Logic and
grammar he had taken up at first, with a view to his
own mental improvement.

Originally an Oxfordshire farmer's son, of the
poorest kind, he had received none but the very
simplest elements of education. To write a good
hand sixt}' years ago, was in rural England in the

CARLISLE. Ill

south, the top of the village schoolmaster's ambition
to teach, and of his rustic pupils' ambition to learn.
To read and write was the summary of the education
then given to poor boys in parish schools, and in
many villages there was no other.

Mr. Osborn was an excellent penman, but little
more ; hence, I suppose, he became a traveller for
a grocery establishment, at a later period of his life,
in which position he was when he first joined the
ministry. He had first rate abilities as a thinker,
and was rather a bold reason er, preferring abstruse
studies in metaphysics, mental science, and philo-
sophical research generally, to history or literature.

He had, in fact, naturally a fine mind, but was
placed in the position of thousands of poor English
youths, without the means to obtain, or the time to
acquire, the necessary education to develope it.
So, like his class, he delighted to discuss deep
philosophical or metaphysical questions, books, and
intellectual topics, which he did with an unwearying
interest.

As to his piety, at the time of his coming into
Carlisle, it was deep and undoubted. I have heard
him frequently close his studies at two o'clock in

112 MARY SMITH.

the morning, in a small attic room, over the one in
which I slept at their house at Brough, with an
audible prayer of great depth and power, which he
thought no one heard but God alone. Dissenting
ministers of forty or fifty years ago, with considerable
families, had often no more than seventy or eighty
pounds a year as stipend, which was in reality the
case with my friend.

Personally, in coming into Carlisle, I concluded
to stay awhile with my friends. My help was
greatly needed, though I knew they could not afford
to pay me, nor even then to re-fund what they had
borrowed. The expense of removing, with their
limited finances, had exhausted all their resources.
This threw me back into the same sad state of
poverty as before. After buying a few needful
articles of dress, I had lent them very nearly all I
had ; a half-crown, and two or three sixpences,
alone remaining in my pocket. I soon saw that no
word was ever said in extenuation of my poverty ;
no one suspected what I had done ; nor did their
behaviour to me as time ran on, tend to show that
they were under obligation to me ; but rather the
reverse.

CARLISLE. 113

So I remember, one winter afternoon, I had been
into my own room to change my dress, and before
coming out, took up a pair of boots to put on.
Before doing so, I examined the soles. Alas ! they
presented a sad sight to one who had no money in
her pocket. They were worn out far beyond my
thought or expectation. What should I do ?

The fact is, I had once over acted indiscreetly.
I had walked with the baby in my arms, often
during the gloomy winter mornings, a short way
from the end of William-street, my object being to
pause awhile before the window of a small book-
seller, named Fishburn. This I did to read over
the titles of his books, and see if there was anything
new. It amused baby to see the pictures as well
as myself. One morning I was attracted by a
rather thick faded copy of a book, the title page of
which was open. It was lectures to the students
of a French college by the lady principal This
arrested my attention, and excited my longing to
read it. But how could I get hold of the book ?

Mr. Osborn and his young student got books of

old "Fish," as they called him, and said they could

not do without them. I had the half-crown in my
L 8

114 MARY SMITH.

pocket — though I had offered it toward a subscrip-
tion at the chapel, poor as I was — but to this offer
they had wisely said "No." So at last, baby and I
actually ventured to open the door, and ask the
placid old man the price of the book in the window.
He looked considerably surprised to see a plainly
dressed young woman, with a baby in her arms,
enquiring the price of such a book. But when he
said half-a-crown, and I drew the money out of my
pocket, he looked much more surprised.

Once I remember, during winter I bought a little
worsted, and knit me a pair of hose, after going to
bed at eleven o'clock at night : and as they objected
to my having a light, I did the best I could, drawing
the blind up to catch whatever light I could from
the street lamp, happily not very far from my
window.

I found an agreeable, well educated, and well
mannered young lady among the Baptists. Her
mother, who was the owner of considerable property
in Botchergate, was a Mrs. Cummins, who lived
there with her three daughters. This Miss Cum-
mins was the youngest — light, fragile, and pretty.
She wore glasses, and afterwards became the wife

CAltUSLS. 115

of Mr. J. A. Cockburn of Allenwood, near Cariisle,
She offered to show me the sights of the old city,
whenever I could find time to go and see them.
So earnest was she, that she often prevailed upon
Mrs. Osborn to let me off, when I would have been
too proud to have asked her myself.

In this way, she took me to see many curiosities,
so called, among which was the museum, then in a
back room of the old Athenaeum, shut up in dis-
order, and covered with dust. She was the nearest
specimen of a southern lady I had seen in the
north ; bright, intelligent, and dressy. She seemed
to be well acquainted with almost everything, from
the Indian idol down to the pair of wee Chinese
slippers. That awful couple of New Zealanders,
which afterwards sent such a shudder through my
frame in Finkle-street, was not there then.

More than an hour we spent together in the
museum, that winter afternoon^ examining and
commenting on the various curiosities. Miss
Cummins was a capital cicerone, and as I had an
immeasurable faculty for listening, we both enjoyed
the thing. From that day I never quite forgot the
dusty old museum, nor ceased to wonder why in a

Il6 MARY SMITH.

place like Carlisle, so destitute of attractions, it was
not brightened up, and put to some better use.
Hence when the question of its preservation
cropped up in the Corporation more than twenty
years after, I knew some little of its past history,
and was able to write on behalf of its preservation
and being made the nucleus of a future museum.
This, thanks to a few active minded men — headed
by Mr. John Sinclair, afterwards its devoted secre-
tary — was at length done, and the little museum
was located in Finkle-street

It is needless to mention other places which
Miss Cummins took me to see ; suffice it to say I
was very anxious to see an assize trial. The scene
was highly instructive and amusing to me. We
had heard many romantic accounts in the south of
Gretna Green marriages, and I had read a good
deal about them in novels. What was my surprise
then to find a real Gretna Green trial going on,
and the old "blacksmith" and his helpful spouse
there in person, with their veritable book in hand.
The young man in the dock — a Cumberland lad of
twenty-two, I think — he did not look so much —
was undergoing trial for having been twice married

CARLISLE. 117

at Gretna. Poor fellow ! he was found guilty, and
sentenced accordingly, the victim of unwise and
thoughtless laws. That young man's serious face
looks at me still through the many years in sad
remonstrance.

But what made this trial doubly interesting to me,
was that it occurred just after the elopement of Lady
Clementeus Villiers. The whole batch of barristers
— from the south, probably — were anxious, on that
account, to get hold of the old man's book, and
find her name in it This they did, upon which
there was such laughing among them, and such
passing the book about, and pointing to it, as to
quite bewilder the old priest. To me the Villiers
case was interesting. The family had a seat at
Upton Edgehills, their principal residence, within
six miles of my home in Oxfordshire, which I had
seen, and from which she had eloped.

There was one more case at the assizes — perhaps
the saddest of all — that of a poor woman, who had
taken her illegitimate boy out of the workhouse,
presumably for a holiday. Instead of this, however,
she had taken him three or four miles into the
country, near to a lonely pond of water, in which

Il8 MARV SMITH.

he wad adkerwards found drowned; Tdis was a long
heart-rending case — hanging or nothing—and as no
one had seen her do it — miserable creature ! — she
finally got off.

There was one more notable place I saw for the
first time, in the company of my friend, Miss
Cummins, and that was Corby woods. It was a
lovely day ; bud and blossom everywhere, the sky
radiant with sunshine, the air balmy and soft, and
not too hot. There were no strollers but ourselves,
which to a reflective mind like my own, was a great
point in the enjoyment. With all due respect to
humanity, crowds always seemed to me to profane
and desecrate nature, with their loud talk and
flippant manners.

CHAPTER IX.

There were many things highly interesting to me
while staying in William-street. The Baptists, who
constantly came there, treated me very kindly and
respectfully : and some of them, who knew I had
had a school at Brough, tried to induce me to begin
one in Carlisle. This I demurred to, preferring to
wait. I had no means to do so properly, and was
ambitious of more education, I felt I would rather
stay a few months where I was, getting knowledge
by reading, and hearing intellectual conversations
and discussions without end.

Among the visitors was Mr. J. A. Cockburn,
afterwards of Allenwood paper mill. He was then
a member of the Baptist church ; a great reader,
especially of Carlyle, a keen politician, an animated
talker, and a very gentlemanly man.

James Milligan was then among the Baptists, a
young married man, a weaver, living at Trinity-
buildings. He had a well-stored mind, and had

120 MARY SMITH.

been a great reader of the best literature ; but,
unfortunately, had an impediment in his speech.
He wrote elegant verses and interesting letters.
Two or three years later, at my suggestion — ^for we
had become very intimate, through my verse making
propensity — he gathered up the best of his poems,
which had appeared in Whitridge's Miscellany,
Some of these, especially "Sunset" and "Daybreak,"
struck me as being strikingly beautiful. They
were issued in shilling pamphlet form by Mr.
Whitridge. By this means the poor weaver realized
sufficient funds to take him to America. In the
New World, a doctor cured him of his stammering.
Soon after he rose to be the editor of a newspaper,
and lived to become a prosperous and much
respected man.

Another man, who has since greatly distinguished
himself, was the Rev. W. J. Tweddle, the son of a
house-painter in Carlisle, then a student at the
Wesleyan college at Didsbury. He called upon
us occasionally when at home, and was always a
genial and interesting friend, who could tell a lively
and diverting story. As a preacher he has been
long conspicuous for his pulpit eloquence in London

CARLISLE. 121

and other large centres of population. His mind
was one of clear and vivid perception, showing
patient and careful thought. He had the penetra-
tion to see through the sophisms of an argument
you wished to hide, and was capable of giving illus-
trations in beautiful diction and poetic language.

Many others came beside, whose object was
more especially theology; young ministers and
students, who got to know when Mr. Osborn was
at home, for he then had good congregations at the
Athenaeum.

I was full of occupation during these months,
and occasionally very grave and sad, as the fact of
the necessity for my further efforts to help myself
pressed more continually on my mind. But as I
was situated, thank heaven, there was much to
interest me. One day, the young student who
stayed with Mr. Osborn, knowing me to be able to
give an opinion, brought a copy of verses, which he
said he was going to send to the Carlisle JoumcU,
He told me the eldest Miss Cummins wrote verses,
and that at her instigation he had tried his hand,
and was very anxious that she should have an
opportunity of seeing them in print. Mr. R. had

122 MARY SMITH.

by no means a brilliant intellect, nor any large
measure of knowledge or reading, and Miss C. was
of the same type. He read them. I remonstrated,
telling him they would be rejected, as I saw they
wanted reason as well as rhyme. But the vanity of
the young minister prevailed, and the result was a
well deserved humbling. Having allowed his verses
to be seen and talked about, they were the cause of
much laughter and amusement in our circle. I said
nothing, but I thought I could write better, as I
had written verses when younger, in imitation of
uncle Newth's rhyming letters.

Mr. Osborn used to rally me and say, when none
but his own family were present, that I was like
none of the other young females — that I set my
cap at none of the young men, nor cared for any-
body whatever — which I felt was perfectly true,
though a secret to myself alone. Had I been a
duke's daughter, I could not have been more careful
of keeping clear of any matrimonial liason than I
was. I did not want matrimony ; it was congenial
labour I wanted. For this I prayed, and waited,
and suffered. I often thought that my plainness
and poverty were my best safe-guard. Moreover,

CARLISLE. t23

I was so grave and lofty — ^lived upon a mountain,
as Mr. Osborn told me — ^that none of the opposite
sex presumed to speak lightly to me.

But one thing is eternally true. Misfortunes
and sorrows bravely borne come to an end, and
hopes kept bright by the breath of prayer always
prosper in the long run. The summer had come
and gone, and a great part of the winter, too, and I
was still working hard for nothing. My pocket
was empty, and my heart sadly sorrowful, the per-
ception of which displeased my friends, who got
impatient with me, thinking, perhaps rightly, that I
ought to be cheerful however troubled I might be.

At last a very slight event brought about a
change in my life. I was blamed unjustly, wrong-
fully. This I could not bear. For all I had done,
I had received no acknowledgment whatever;
sometimes quite the reverse — was made to feel,
though no words were said, that I was dependent
on the Osborns. This I felt they knew to be
untrue, or would, at least, when I was gone. This
event had roused me to action ; for I was proud,
and though poor, of a very independent spirit. So
I cried and prayed all the night througbi but rose

124 MARY SMITH.

in the morning to my work as usual, with a full
determination on action. I could not possibly stay
any longer, where I had been made to feel I was
no longer wanted.

I wrote out an advertisement for a preparatory
governess* situation. Before going with it to the
Journal office, I told Mr. Osborn calmly all that I
proposed doing. I showed him the paper, but he
said nothing either for or against it. It was about
the beginning of the year. I waited and waited,
but no application came, save one in the shape of a
cruel hoax.

However, in about a fortnight, when I was en-
gaged with the work of the family, two ladies called,
wishing to see me with a view to an engagement.
They were from Scotby : Mr. Sutton's mother and
his wife's sister. I was not presentable then, but
went over in the afternoon. I saw Mrs. Sutton,
and was at once engaged. I entered on my new
duties at Candlemas. No youth or maiden of
Scripture times or sacred story being more surely
led by God than was I; or, I may say, no one
more clearly recognised the providential hand of
God leading me in the narrow path than I did.

CARLISLE. 125

I had but two or three days to prepare for my
new situation, and they were very busy ones. First
of all, I had to ask Mr. Osbom for another sovereign.
I found if I asked for more it would be inconvenient
for them. I had already had one out of the five
which I had lent — this, with the new demand, left
three unpaid. But my very scanty wardrobe, thanks
to my persistent industry, was all ready in time;
and with a feeling that I could brave being thought
worse off than I really was, I entered upon the
duties of my new home, among new and scrutinizing
eyes.

CHAPTER X.

ScoTBY is a nice and pleasant village, a short
distance from Carlisle, of which Mr. Sutton's leather
works were — and still are — the central life and sole
industry. The tanyard and working-men's dwelling
houses, and the reading room, near the station,
being the first objects of interest to attract the
attention of strangers. It is a very clean and
flourishing place. Mr. Sutton's residence stands in
the centre of the village, in the midst of its own
grounds, just beyond the modest Friends' meeting
house and burial ground.

I found my new home eminently one of peace,
order, and good manners; industry, thrift, and
genial good sense, made the days go round with
what at first appeared to be monotonous quietness,
after my being used to the fuller and freer life of
intellectual intercourse and aspirations. But as the
spring advanced, and we were able to get out into
the gardens and fields, I became more in love with

CARLISLE. 127

the place, and likewise began to think more highly
of its inhabitants. It is almost needless to say I had
come into a veritable Quaker's family. The order,
precision, and punctuality of the house, were for
the first few weeks very oppressive. It was well for
me that there were babies to engage my attention.

I got on very well, as my employment threw me
a good deal into the society of Mrs. Sutton, whom
I found an exceedingly well educated and well read
lady, capable of talking on many, if not on all kinds
of subjects. I had been careful at our first inter-
view rather to underrate than overrate my own
parts, telling her next to nothing about myself; not
even that I had had a school, which she did not
know till long afterwards. I was grave and circum-
spect, answering her numerous questions with regard
more to their truth than my own honour, saying
little more beyond than that I came from the south,
which pleased her on account of my manner of
speaking. Hence, for the first few months, she was
constantly making discoveries in my favour.

I was then well read in Emerson, and had imbibed
much of his Spartan spirit, which made me think
very little of many of the Quaker proclivities, though

128 MARY SMITH.

I admired very much their great religious principles,
and their sterling nonconformity. Mrs. Sutton was
surprised to find in her talks with me how much I
knew of the history and principles of the Quakers,
especially that I had read Jonathan Dymond's
Essays, then a comparatively new book. She soon
found my reading of books meant real knowledge.
Yea, in one case, I had gone beyond her, and had
read William Penn's "Sandy Foundation Shaken."
This, she said, she had neither seen nor knew any
one else who had.

But here let me say, that I was first of all careful
and anxious to perform the duties of my situation,
with care and exactness, and in a proper spirit. I
was shrewd enough to know (as every young person
should know), that whatever incidents of knowledge
or reading I might display, would rather tell against
than for me. In a word, I knew my conduct would
be the final test of my doings there, and my
endeavour as a sensible woman was to live as
irreproachable as possible. With this aim from the
first, I was willing to make myself agreeable to
every one, so far as it was consistent with my ideas
of right and wrong. So when Mrs. Sutton seemed

CARLISLE. 129

anxious to get me to talk, I showed myself quite
willing to do so ; or to refrain, when I saw the least
want of interest.

Ann, the cook, was a Catholic. She went when
I did, and consequently had not been there long.
One day, a sister of Mrs. Sutton's, who was on a
visit, came to me and asked if I did not think we
should talk to Ann, or do something to get her to
change her religion. I was startled by the question,
but after a moment's thought, replied, **Do you
think we can make Ann a better girl by doing so ?"
This was not spoken without knowledge. I had
been struck from the first with Ann's diligent use
of the means of her church for worship. On Sun-
day mornings in winter, she would rise before any
one else in the house, and start off fasting before it
was light, all weathers, to walk three miles to her
chapel, to hear early mass. She would stay to the
morning service, coming back about two o'clock,
without breaking her fast She would then at once
relieve the other girl, and take the work of both, in
consideration of having herself been out in the
morning.

From the nursery, as the long days advanced, I

130 MARY SMITH.

have often seen her kneeling by her bed in prayerful
attitude. I could see this unknown to her; and
many a time her zeal put to shame my own more
lax and uncertain devotions. Heaven help me !
Her ignorance outstripped my better knowledge, in
the practical worship of God, as it may be that of
many another has done whom I have foolishly
condemned ! Besides this, Ann was a thoroughly
good servant; a clever cook, upright and careful,
respecting all her mistress's wishes.

So the lady, knowing this much, left me without
saying another word. And I stood wondering how
it was that so wise an answer to her had so suddenly
been given me. I ought to say, perhaps, that this
Catholic servant lived in this Quaker family for ten
years, treated by them with much confidence and
respect ; the humble friend of themselves and the
children, and yet she never changed her religion.
Indeed, as I have grown older, I have come to see
and feel that creeds are less than life. The latter
may be true, when the former is far from it. The
force of creeds, however, is very great.

I remember some years after this, having been
introduced to an Italian lady in Carlisle — a public

CARLISLE. 131

singer, a Madame Cora de Stella — as a person
interested in German poetry and literature. I
found her an exceedingly well read person, and
especially interested in what I said of some of the
great thinkers of Germany — Jacobi Novalis, Schiller,
and others. She also indulged in some remarks on
their religious views, in which she expressed herself
as deeply interested, but added, clasping her hands
together, " Oh, Miss Smith ! when I take a silent
walk in the fields or by the river side, and grow sad
and prayerful, it is always my mother's prayer which
rises in my soul — that and no other." Did I
reprove this lady, or try to change her faith? I
did no such thing. That she really prayed at all,
was enough for me.

CHAPTER XL

I WAS henceforth very happy at Scotby. I con-
tinued as usual all ray duties in the nursery, neither
asking nor taking any liberties of any kind; too
proud for that ; only taking care to do all that was
required of me. Sitting closely at sewing, making
all manner of things for the children, from frocks
and tippets for common wear, to almost everything
else that was needed, till nine o'clock in the
evening.

I had myself adopted this hour for giving over
work, and strictly adhered to it all the time I was
at Scotby ; though Mrs. Sutton would occasionally
come in bringing a daily newspaper for me to read,
bidding me put my work aside.

One Sunday when it was my turn to go to chapel,
it was such a flood of rain that I was prevented.
Mrs. Sutton brought me a lot of books from
their library to choose from. Only one could
I find to interest me, Howitt's "History of Civiliza-

CARLISLE. ' 133

tion," a book it is worth any one's while to read
and ponder over.

At this time I first became acquainted with the
writings of Thomas Carlyle. Emerson and he
thenceforth became my two great masters of thought
for the rest of my life. Carlyle's gospel of Work
and exposure of Shams, and his universal onslaught
on the nothings and appearances of society, gave
strength and life to my vague but true enthusiasm.
They proved a new Bible of blessedness to my eager
soul, as they did to thousands beside, who had
become weary of much of the vapid literature of the
time. I read all his works I could get hold of, and
my poems will testify how truly I appreciated them.

One day Mr. Sutton asked me if I knew what
the critics said about Carlyle ; perhaps wishing to
suggest that I should read him with caution, as the
Friends at that time considered his teachings as
somewhat sceptical I replied, I knew quite
well, but did not heed them; believing they were
prejudiced against him, some through want of
comprehension, and others through pure ignorance.

About this time, I possessed myself of a small
edition of Emerson's Essays. I carried it in my

134 MARY SUflTH.

pockeft for many years, so that whenever I had a
little spare time, I took up this source of instruction
and inspiration. By reading them over and over,
in this way, which I did with increasing delight,
I came to know him almost entirely by heart, and
could quote him largely without any trouble.

I also carried about pocket editions of the poets
in the same way and for the same purpose.
Especially I remember having done so with Tom
Moore, hoping to catch something of his exquisite
melody, for I knew well enough my verses wanted
music, and that however full of thought they might
be, it was the music that constituted the song
qualities.

In Longfellow I found much my heart craved, as
I believe thousands of others did, for it is ever the
religious sentiment that best satisfies the human
heart, and commands the deepest and truest devotion
and love. I read his stirring stanzas in newspapers
and periodicals, and such was their effect at first,
that I could not sleep for repeating them and
thinking of them. The ** Psalm of Life," "Sand of
the Desert," and the "Ladder of St. Augustine,''
W€re tbe first I happened to see, and never shall I

CARLISLE. 135

forget the vivid enthusiastic life they awakened in
me. Night and day they were in my thoughts,
though not in my speech, as I had no literary friend
at Scotby, save and except Mrs. Sutton herself.
With her I had earnest and interesting talk at
intervals, I believe as much to her delight as my
own, for intellect knows no ranL

I had two or three admirers at this period, but
I only heard of them through my friends the
Osborns. Here is a little story somewhat amusing.
I was up at my friends' for my "term,"* as it is
called, at which time I generally did my shopping.
Mrs. Osborn and I were in the sitting room in the
evening of a late autumn night, when their landlord,
Mr. So-and-So, came in, a well-to-do tradesman, and
widower. Inviting him to wait Mr. Osbom's return,
I was introduced to him as a young friend of the
family. He stayed a full hour or more, during
which time Mrs. Osborn kept him engaged in con-
versation, for she was a grand talker. When he
rose to depart, I — as was proper — though I had

* In the north of England, Whitsuntide and Martinmas are
the **term'* times for domestic servants, that is, the holidays
which intervene between one half-year and the other.— ^</.

136 MARY SMITH.

neither looked up from my work nor spoken —
again stood up to say " Good-night*'

Judge then of my surprise, on my next visit, when
Mrs. Osbom told me that Mr. So-and-So had fallen
in love with me. He had asked her to have him
to tea with me, so that he might have an opportunity
of making me an offer. I at once exclaimed : *' No,
it's no use. I cannot do that." I could see all my
intellectual castles falling with a crash, to rise no
more. And, moreover, I had formed the opinion,
that to marry for earthly advantage, without one's
affections being intertwined, was a foul blot which
nothing could justify. So though she remonstrated
with me, calling me foolish, and saying he was a
good man (which was true enough), I still said:
"No, it's impossible! He's not. intellectual. What
is marriage without happiness ! The bare idea of
it is dreadful to contemplate."

I never saw this gentleman again till many years
after, when I met him casually at a tea-party. He
recognised me with a merry twinkle in his eye,
thinking evidently of that ancient tea at which we
had met, before his head had grown grizzled and
bare. He was very polite, and thanked me for

CARLISLE. 137

the kindness which he said I had shown his
daughter, whom I had accidentally met on a day's
excursion to Derwentwater. I always respected
him, but never regretted my action. Thus are
romance and hard facts interwoven with our lives.

The ordinary routine of this Quaker family very
much resembled that of my own home. The same
reverent quiet spirit pervaded all the house. There
was no scolding ; no storms of any kind between
husband and wife. His wishes were studied and
observed from morning to night. "William likes
it so," was continually on his wife's lips in arranging
for the day, and in giving orders to the servants.
She was, in fact, a model wife, exerting herself
continually to do whatever he required.

Starting on a journey, either by night or day, she
saw to all his luggage ; everything being put where
it could easily be found. And when going by the
midnight train, she alone sat up and saw him
start off.

The children were rather spoken to than scolded,
and prompt obedience was expected at all times.
In their behaviour to the servants, and any one
under them, very rigid rules were enforced. Nothing

138 MARY SMITH.

was to be taken or done for them by a servant,
without the ready "Thank thee," or "Obliged to
thee," as soon as they were able to articulate the
words.

Mrs. Sutton was at all times very particular about
the truth, especially in those who had anything to
do with the little ones. Once when they had a
younger under-nurse, she came to me and asked,
" Dost thou think Lizzie always speaks the truth ? "
Indeed it did a girl good to be there awhile. One
girl called to see the children, some months after
leaving, and when I enquired how she was doing,
said, with tears in her eyes, "Ah ! I should have
stayed here. You are all so quiet, and so happy,
and contented."

The Quakers had no tricks or sleight of hand for
getting money. They earned what they got, by
dint of rigid punctuality, plunging deep into business,
and they themselves seeing and knowing how every
thing came and went. They were very hard to
cheat, or to get the upper hand of in anything. A
half-day's fishing in Wetheral woods, with the Rev.
J. Halifax, the vicar, who lived close by, was the
only relaxation which Mr. Sutton took. And in

CARLISLE. 139

their expenditure, there was no show. They held
that money must be earned before it was spent.
Not the modern plan of spending first, and paying
— or not — afterward.

Fashion followed afar off, and kept a very demure
face there. And then the old Quaker ladies at
Scotby, with their peach-white satin poke bonnets
and dresses, and beautiful spun silk drab shawls,
devoid of fringe; with their *'thee's" and **thou's,''
and their sweetly lipped "farewells," and their
calmly bright effulgent faces, like pictures, always
the same, have mostly passed away now. Yet like
all pure and beautiful things, they have left precious
memories behind them.

I had been at Scotby nearly a year, when going
to chapel every fortnight, I was regularly supplied
with literary and religious gossip, and learnt that
some of my friends had been sending verses to
Whitridge's Miscellany. Oddly enough my own
mind had often run in that direction, when left to
myself in the nursery in a morning. Busy with my
hands, I found, as I often before had done, that by
concentrating the mind on some single subject, I
could throw my thoughts into verse as an exercise.

I40 MARY SMITH.

And by doing this, I could relieve myself of the
feeling that, do what I could, I was living a sad,
monotonous, profitless life, so far as anything I
specially desired or wished for was concerned.

But in engaging my mind, while my hands were
fully occupied, I began regularly to pursue my own
thoughts, with great zeal and delight, during that
time, as my capacity to do so seemed to grow
amain with every new opportunity. I composed
in this way many trifles, as mere mental exercises.
The action improved and quickened my mind.
With Dr. Arnold, I would recommend everyone to
keep a verse book, though, like him, they never
think of printing their verses.

I wrote on for many months, never naming it,
with the exception of taking a copy of such as
related to any event in my friends' family. These
pieces were read and admired. I was told by the
Rev. W. J. Tweddle, who had become a Wesleyan
preacher, that he often quoted my verses in the
Manchester and Liverpool pulpits. Thus many of
my earlier verses became known and read, being
lent and copied j and I went on, as the poet always
does, to produce others. One, "A Starless Night,"

CARLISLE. 141

my friends sent to the Miscellany^ which was to
come next after a piece of James Milligan's. This
arrangement filled the mind of the poor stammering
weaver with gratitude and delight

However, contrary to my wish, an incident occurred
over this little poem, which annoyed me. The Mis-
cellany was taken at Scotby I found, and as these were
my first printed verses, I did not quite know when
they would appear. Consequently one evening,
Mrs. Sutton came running to me to ask, much to my
surprise, if the verses signed "M.S." were mine. I
at once said "Yes," though not quite pleased to
have my secret known. In apology, she said
she knew they were, as they were so like the way
I talked ; but for my comfort, she did not seem at
all displeased. I did not wish to talk about them,
only thinking them very moderate, so on that
subject we spoke no more.

In the first verses of mine, sent to the Carlisle
Toumal by my friends, the initials were misprinted;
the *'M.S." being "M.L.," which hid my secret.
This piece was entitled "The Good Time Coming "
Charles Mackay's song, under the same title, was
being sung everywhere just then, by all sorts of

142 MARY SMITH.

people. To ray practical mind there did not
appear to be much wisdom in it. So I tried to
write one on the same subject.

It's a good time now for all to strive,

And effort maketh stronger :
Oh, let us up — man maketh the times —

Let us up and wait no longer.

This may perhaps show that my verse, if deficient
in music and beauty, had from the first back-bone
in it. Poetry, in fact, grew into a passion with me.
I soon found I must be on my guard against it. I
could not afford to neglect the duties of my situ-
ation, and the moral responsibilities connected
therewith. "Better write no poetry at all, than
lower myself to do wrong," I said to myself. So I
wanted no mistress' eye upon me. My own was
enough ; and many a little lecture I read myself on
being faithful in all things.

But, alas ! a very small circumstance showed
what dangerous ways I was treading. One day,
when I was busy in the nursery, Mrs. Sutton called
to me for a shawl once or twice, but I did not hear
her. At last, Mary Ann, the servant, came running
to fetch it. Had I not heard Mrs. Sutton calling

CARLISLE. 143

to me over and over for it ? she asked. And did I
not hear her when she spoke to me in the morning
before? My shame- faced reply was **No/' and
seizing the shawl in her hands, I at once leaped
down to Mrs. Sutton with it. I told her I was very
sorry indeed, but I really had not heard her. I
certainly would try and be more careful in future.

She looked coldly incredulous; but if she was
vexed with me, I was a thousand times more vexed
with myself. My pride had had an awful fall
before them all, and I wished to make no excuse.
The greatest trouble to me was that my word should
be doubted, as it had been, both by Mrs. Sutton
and Mary Ann. But I made no protestation. It
was the first time I had been lost in thought to
such an extent. I must take care to be on my
guard. I must poetise only in the evening, when
the children were in bed.

Never again while I was there did I allow any
one to speak to me without hearing them. In after
years, hpwever, I have frequently been told of
meeting friends, even on the street, whom I have
not recognised, and of having been spoken to when
I have not heard ; but my friends knew and under-
stood me then, and wisely let me go my own way.

X44 MARY SMITH.

One day, Mrs. Sutton came into the back parlour,
when I was with the children at lessons, and one of
them spoke to me as "Smith" in her presence.
She turned to me, and said, " Oh dear, I do not
like to hear them call thee that hard name. I wish
we could call thee something else." I was silent
for a moment. I had been called "Miss Smith*'
ever since I had left home, and often before. I
knew the Friends objected to titles, so I said, call
me "Governess'* if you like. She went away with-
out further remark, but the next day I found the
servants had orders to call me '* Governess;'* the
children and their parents being the first to do so.

But I had no vanity about these things. My
hopes and aspirations lay in another direction,
towards which I was apparently making no progress.

My solace and joy being in the fact that I was still
able to devote my time of leisure, though little, to
reading and reflection, with seasons also of verse
making. My great aim was to use simple, natural
language, avoiding metaphors as Wordsworth did,
and never to write without a feeling of help and
inspiration. My path had never been strewn with
roses, and whatever I attempted to do, I felt must
be done without encouragement.

CARLISLE. 145

It was about the second year of my being at
Scotby that I sent some poems to the People's
yournal. I did this at first as a test of what they
were worth, as I had no one whose judgment I
could rely on. "Look Up" was the title of the
first one thus published —

Heaven's holy missionaries, the stars, come every night,
And talk of God and destiny in the language of light ;
And walk we with downcast eyes ? Are their wondrous

words unread ?
Their voices all unheard? O Man, lift, lift thy bowed head.

I wrote these poems and many others under the
nom de plume of "Mary Osborn," solely for the
purpose of remaining unknown in the family where
I was. I feared they might think I neglected some
duty to attend to them, though really this was not
the case. They were mostly composed while en-
gaged in some duty that left my mind free, or
oftener while on the road between Carlisle and
Scotby, going or returning from chapel.

To return to my life at Scotby. It was in every
way a great mental growth and peaceful pleasure.
My duty was to my liking, and I was trusted

implicitly, the keys being left with me and the
I. 10

146 MARY SMITH.

care of all in Mrs. Sutton's absence. The second
summer I was there, we went to Fliniby, on the
west Cumberland coast, for six weeks. This was a
great joy to me, as I had never seen the open sea
before. The sea and the mountains together made
a deep impression on my mind ; the one enhancing
and giving life to the other. The waves were
within hearing day and night. And it was an
exquisite pleasure to walk along the lovely coast as
far as Mary port, which I often did about sunset to
the Baptist chapel, the sea and sky then putting on
all their solemn grandeur and glory.

I have seen bits of the sea at seaside towns since,
but have been generally disgusted at its draggled
and defiled appearance. Indeed, I saw nothing
that came up to the coast scenery about Flimby.
The night before we left was full moon, and very
clear. Mrs. Sutton thought it would interest me to
go and see the sea at midnight, poet like, under the
silvery light of the moon. I went, and saw one of
the fairest sights I ever beheld or hope to behold
in this world. Our free mode of life at Flimby put
new strength into us all, and we returned home
very happy and contented.

CARLISLE. 147

I had unbounded peace and comfort at Scotby,
and therefore thought I could never be better off. I
was not one of those sanguine souls who believe in
future, instead of living in the present. I had no
complaints, fearing rather that I might be com-
plained of, although the marked kindness I was
shown continually convinced me to the contrary.

My days had little variation ; all were alike calm
and happy, the common events merely of household
life. Visitors at intervals came and went, and
small parties of Friends made a show of company
in the best rooms of the house, and now and then
a flutter among the servants. Some passing celeb-
rities came to dinner, who might be holding a
meeting or lecturing in Carlisle. The Friends were
in advance of most people in politics and the
popular topics of the day.' So we had James Silk
Buckingham, whom I went to hear lecture; and
Henry Vincent, whose style of eloquence was of
the most robust and manly order.

Coming home from a political gathering one
night, Mr. Sutton said to me, that they wanted a
first rate speaker for a coming meeting. Did I
know of one? I replied, at once, "Send for

148 MARY SMITH.

Henry Vincent He will please you alL" He had
fascinated me (as the first political speaker I had
heard), when he contested the borough of Banbury.
Happening to be with a cousin of mine — in spite
of her remonstrances — I would stop and hear him
answer George Harris, on the steps of the "Flying
Horse" yard, although I dare not tell my father.
Vincent was a Chartist, which at that time was a
name of terror to many people. At Carlisle he
seemed to captivate everybody, and to sway the
vast audience at his will.

We had other notables, and, by times, much
interesting talk on politics. I was at Scotby
through the year 1848, and we shared all the
excitement of the great world in that small northern
village, rejoicing with the best when unkingly kings
were uncrowned.

George Dawson of Birmingham came to lecture
on George Fox at Carlisle. We went to hear him.
He shocked the old friends with his free speech
and outspoken truthfulness, especially when he told
them that "George Fox would spew the modern
Quakers out of his mouth !" When I got home,
Mrs. Sutton asked what I thought of that I said

CARLISLE. 149

what I believed, which was, that I thought it trae,
and still think so, too.

George Fox and the early Friends were among
the truest, noblest, and most courageous saints of
all the ages; and in their aim at sincerity of
speech, action, and worship, they inaugurated one
of the greatest and most practical reforms since the
Christian era.

In truth, we lived a sort of Arcadian life at
Scotby. Our conversation, and small excitements,
though limited, being of the best order. We kept
our sympathies, as well as our intelligence, up to
the stroke of the great world, and shared the cares
of its life struggles.

I asked for few liberties. My own friends were
in Oxfordshire, too far for me to have visited them
if I had wished, and here I had none to take
counsel from ; but so far as that was concerned, I
was satisfied. I had got to love the children very
much, especially the little twin I had had from her
birth, who had become to me as dear as my own
child.

CHAPTER XII.

But the happiest periods come to an end, as did
this one at Scotby. My old friends at Carlisle,
who for many years were a fate to me, had got into
trouble. Mr. Osborn preached doctrines which
the Baptist Society deemed unsound, and notice
came that the grant would be withdrawn. It was
withdrawn accordingly, and the church was too
poor to support him without it. What were they
to do ? " Begin a school," said their friends. But
Mr. Osborn had never done anything of the kind,
and it was to be a mixed school, as nearly all the
schools are in the north.

The next Sunday I went to Carlisle, therefore, I
was asked if I would leave Scotby, and help them
in the proposed school, as in that way they felt
sure of success. It was a great surprise for me,
and I felt from past experience, that it would be
against all my best interests, and would be a sore
trial to me. But then, here was a family of young

CARLISLE. Ijl

children actually starving, not enough to eat, as I
knew, and the mother near her confinement. What
was I to do ? I took a week to think of it, and
much as my mind was against it, the wan faces of
those children who had to be limited every day and
denied food, haunted me continually. I dare not
refuse to come to their aid.

I was promised the same wage which I had at
Scotby, if the school succeeded. The school did
well, but I never received any salary. The result
was that I spent the little I had saved, wore out all
my clothes, and offended even my poor father, who
wanted me to stay where I was well off. But I
was religious, and had on principle refused to be
the wife of a well-to-do man, for whom I had no
affection ; and I now thought it my duty to go in
the face of my friends and my own interests to try
to save this starving family, to whose poor children
I was much attached.

Never shall I forget what I felt when I told Mrs.
Sutton I would be obliged to leave, nor shall I
forget the agitation it caused her. They saw it was
done out of a sense of duty. The first words Mrs.
Sutton said were — they had not given me money

152 MARY SMtTrt.

enough, and Mr. Sutton would give me anything I
wished. I at once told her everything — told her
that money was not in my thoughts at all — far
otherwise. So they let me go, seeing my mind was
definitely made up.

Our school was in a house at the bottom of
Castle-street, now occupied by Mr. Robert Dalton,
auctioneer. There I lived and laboured for more
than a year.

Mr. Osborn had the reputation of being very
clever, and really was so in many things. He had
the best of all gifts, that of inspiring young men
with faith in themselves and with what they could
do. He was also very kind with the younger ones,
and stood less upon his dignity than most masters,
which made him popular alike with the children
and their parents. He was well recommended, as
he had given lessons for some time to gentlemen
in grammar, logic, elocution, etc. He had also
published a sixpenny chart of grammar, very useful
to local preachers and others; and a sixpenny
handbook of logic, for the working men of his
former classes, to whom these manuals had been
very useful. These stood him in good stead in
beginning his school

CARLISLE. 153

In a short time, the school room was filled with
children of the well-to-do classes of the city, so that
there was no longer any fear of success. But I was
the practical teacher in all the classes, for even the
biggest boys soon found that I could answer their
questions and understood their work as well as their
master. In fact, I was at times left with the whole
school of sixty or seventy boys and girls, for a day
together, while Mr. Osborn was out on other
business. I had both a laborious and responsible
situation.

This was rendered especially so, when I had
pupils of an evening, which I occasionally had. I
was sometimes engaged three evenings in a week.
I did the teaching, though he made the bills out
and took the money ; and this mode of procedure
also held good of the evening pupils I had. I was
indeed worked so hard and kept so close while
there, that all through summer I was never able to
get out for a walk in the evening, nor indeed at any
other time, save Sunday afternoon. At times, my
head was excruciating, and all sorts of remedies
had to be tried for it. But besides hard work, I
had also very scant and coarse fare, which| it is

154 MARY SMITH.

true, I very often volunteered to take, knowing they
were very hard up and deep in debt. I believe I
would have gone entirely without food of any kind,
could I have done it, so anxious was I to get them
set forward on a better footing.

But bad as these things were, they were not
tliose that tried me the most, or made me feel the
keenest. There was an atmosphere of jealousy,
I felt, continually around and about me, that led
to criticising and underrating very much, if not all,
I did. This was carried so far, at times, as to lead
to my being found fault with, and rebuked before
the whole school, which— after being so much
respected at Scotby — tried me very much.

In the old days, when I was young and strong, I
was very much of a Spartan. At Scotby, I refused
all luxuries that were offered me, and took only the
plainest food. I had done without luxuries in
Westmorland, and thought it both wise and well to
school myself by plain living, remembering that one
**eats to live" only, and that it is nobler to make
one's wants few than many.

So for me to do without animal food for weeks
together, as I ihen did, was less trying than it would

CARLISLE. 155

have been to many, especially as I often volunteered
to do so for the sake of others. Still as they knew
I was doing this entirely for their good, and keeping
it all a secret to myself, I certainly did expect some
little respect. But a woman without friends in the
world, as I was, must harden herself to dare and
endure much.

I was not, however, joyless among my hard work
and sorrow. I carried a pocket edition of Emerson
always about with me in those days, nor could I
possibly have had a better book, as he teaches the
truths of social heroism as none other. One
morning, I remember, I had this book open in ray
hand, at "Heroism," as I sat at breakfast. Mr.
Osborn coming down, passed behind me, and
paused to look over my shoulder. He had done
so on other mornings. Finding me still at the
same subject, it seems, for he exclaimed, "What !
Heroism again, Mary?"

Yes, certainly, I needed to be schooled in
heroism, more than anything else. For beside
long hours of teaching, I had the school-room to
sweep and dust, every morning before breakfast;
and on Saturdays, to assist in all the work of the

156 MARY SMITH.

house. Sometimes, in fact, I was rather glad, on a
Saturday, to have a room to scrub, as then I was
left to myself, and could compose while I cleaned,
if so inclined. In this way, nearly the whole of the
poem. ** Simple Flowers" was cast into shape one
Saturday. Very happy was I on these occasions,
as the inspiration of my mind lightened the labour
of my hands; and that little poem, which appeared
in one of Cassell's Magazines, I always considered
one of my best.

It arose from the fact of my having seen some
pretty flowers growing in the window at my old
French teacher's in a lane in Scotch-street, the
night before. Many of my poems, all through life,
were composed in the same way, or in taking a
lonely walk in the country.

But to me there was another and brighter side of
my life, without which, perhaps, I hardly could
have endured so much. This French lesson, two
evenings a week, proved a very interesting and
novel pleasure to me. The old lady, a Miss
Patrickson, had many amusing traits in her some-
what Frenchified demeanour. She attended the
Bible Society's meetings held at Rickerby house,

CARLISLE. 157

in George Head Head's time, and once called upon
me in her gala get up, as she went there, like
herself in nothing but her French ways.

She was about sixty years old, and had been
in Paris a dozen years. Had seen much bf its
literary society, esp)ecially of Monsieur de Balzac,
with whom she had been on intimate terms. She
had translated several of his novels, so she told me,
and which seemed quite possible, from her manners
and conversation. She had an endless store of
anecdote and story about the novelist and his com-
peers, which she was constantly telling me, more
than half of which was spoken in French.

This I knew to be very helpful to me, and so I
wisely let her run on. You seemed to be in a
Parisian boudoir. In fact, her literary assumptions,
and the endless shrug of her shoulders, were very
piquant; and she contrived to show some bit of
brightness, in the shape of cap and shawl, however
deficient otherwise. Her door (which I usually
found barred), and certain potent smells (which I
invariably found floating in the air), led me to think
that she cheered her solitude with other than
literary stimulants. But I never knew that this was

158 MARY SMITH.

literally the case. The heart knoweth its own
bitterness, and there is no doubt she needed
comfort in her loneliness.

I always treated her with deference, and she in
return prepared and illustrated my lessons with
much care. Her pronunciation was very good.
Every time I went, I got her to give me a French
dictation lesson. This I found was capital for the
pronunciation, as it obliged me to give very
close attention to her manner of speaking, and led
her to pronounce it as slowly and deliberately as
possible; often, to help me, doing so twice over.
In this way, better than any other, I became
familiarised with the words of my lesson.

I worked resolutely in school and out, always
employed, whoever else was gadding about, or
whatever was going on in the city. Parents as well
as children soon got to know that I was the better
and more painstaking teacher of the two, where
pains and patience were really needed. Hence I
became very popular among the pupils, especially
with the boys, whose work, they soon found, I knew
all about.

But in spite of all the hard work, we often had

CARLISLE. 159

very pleasant evenings. Mr. Osborn was certainly
an intellectual man. He had the gift of attracting
men of the same character, of stimulating their
abilities, and developing their aspirations, though
himself a very partially educated man. Could he
have remained a preacher, it would have been more
favourable to his upward progress, though he had in
him an element of change, which deteriorated from
that stability and strength required to build up a
truly wise and good man.

Many young men of good parts, drawn by Mr.
Osborn's abilities, gathered up in the evenings for
talk and discussion. Among these were Dr. Robert
Elliot, Mr. J. A. Cockburn, Mr. W. J. Tweddle, Mr.
D. Blackburn, and many more. Dr. Elliot was one
of the most intelligent, as well as one of the latest
sitters — often continuing his discourse over night
till late in the morning. He had infinite resources
of conversation. He was a great observer and an
acute reasoner, and was well skilled in scientific
research.

Night after night there would be discussions on
some set subject, such as theology, science, logic,
or politics. Being frequently invited to take part

X60 MARY SMITH.

in these discussionSi I sometimes did so. I was as
well up in logic as most of them, but preferred to
find the basis of truth in something more godlike
than logic. Hence I refused to yield full credence
to its decisions. Logic alone does not answer the
question — what is Truth? The inspired soul of
man alone can do that, hence I had no regard for
hard and dry logical conclusions. I always held
fast to my primary conclusions, that a man must
himself be divinely true, before his conclusions can
be so.

Nor did we hold merely intellectual discussions.
All the popular topics of the day came under our
notice. New books were talked of and criticised,
and special historic events, such as Lord John
Russeirs "No Popery" letter, which caused a
tremendous amount of talk among all sorts and
conditions of people.

Mr. Osborn sided with the Catholics, as most of
us did ; but I thought he should have been more
independent than to have allowed himself to be
seated in Mr. Phillip Howard's carriage to speak
for them. I told him so, as I remember, when he
came home late at night, after attending an excited

CARLISLE. l6l

meeting which had been held on the Sands. The
"larger heart" proved the truer one, as in history it
has ever done. Would that we could learn that
fact ! Pity that Lord John, with his own heretical
proclivities, should have sounded so narrow and
false a note.

And what a sensation some books created ! The
Oxford tracts had been published and read before
this; but John Henry Newman was now before
the public, with his "Sorrows of the Soul" and
"Phases of Faith," both of which came to Mr.
Osborn's house.

But the book that most excited the wonder and
curiosity of the reading world of that time, and, as
religious people then said, filled them with scepti-
cism, was one of a quite different type. This was
the "Vestiges of Creation." I doubt not that it
loosened some of the strongholds of the literal and
plenary inspiration views of the Bible; and, it
might be, weakened imperceptibly some of that
terrible gravity of thought and feeling which Cal-
vinists, and indeed most truly religious people,
regarded at that time the truths of religion.

Calvinism was a sober truth with millions of
L 11

1 6s MARY SMITH.

people up till then. There were many of all
denominations who lived daily in the fear of hell ;
and scepticism of the archfiend's personal power
was then considered equal in its wickedness to the
doubt of Deity and a future state. Judge then the
alarm and head-shaking this book was received
with in the religious world. Many of them read it
clandestinely, and then silently waited for the
comments and criticisms of the press and pulpit.

The book came as a loan to 84 Castle-street
Its incredible statements, as I got to know some-
thing of them from others, made me intensely
anxious to read it for myself. To this end, I got
hold of the book one night. It was in the long
days of summer. Not being able to read it other-
wise, I sat up till after daybreak, finishing its
interesting pages by the first light of the morning,
at my bedroom window.

On myself and my mode of thought, this book,
and its successors in the same field, effected little
change. Its arguments were to me much harder to
believe than the dear old truths of the Bible, and
the divine doctrines of the New Testament. These
latter revive and quicken and inspire the spirit of

CARLISLE. 163

man, thus proving their truth, as the organ of vision
proves the light of day. Like Thomas Carlyle, my
own early life owed its best and brightest influences
to the devout Calvinism under which it was reared.
Religion, I think, has little to fear from scientific
inquiry, or its endlessly changing theories of nature
and man.

I wrote but two or three poems during the year
I was at Castle-street, as I worked tremendously
all day and every day, and often far into the night
It was while seated at my small table, poring over
my books at midnight, that I was roused into full
consciousness of their beauty, by the cathedral
chimes striking full and clear upon me at that hour.
This event led to my composing a short piece on
the subject, then and there. It was sent to the
Carlisle youmal^ and as it appeared without a
name, simply "84 Castle-street," it was universally
attributed to Mr. Osborn.

But I found at the school and in the house,
whatever I did I failed to please. My patience,
hard work, and endurance of unjust criticism were
all in vain. I was needlessly made to feel affronts
for which there was no excuse, and slighted day

164 MARY SMITH.

after day without any possible reason. Any new or
interesting book, I found, was put into a drawer
and locked up, contrary to custom, and much to
my mortification : I was piqued continually with
petty annoyances.

Notwithstanding these things, I had an unusually
strong and sincere attachment to the Osborns, and
should hardly have considered any sacrifice too
great to make on their behalf. This attachment
to the family had now been strengthened by the
years I had been with or near them.

I found all the parents of the scholars very kind
to me. One lady, a Mrs. William Wood, who had
children at school, made me a present ,of a new
dress. I have no doubt, by my dilapidated appear-
ance, she had guessed the secret of my working for
nothing. But I shrank from eliciting such acts as
these. My friends were offended by these favours
to me. They seemed to imply a reflection on
them, and did not increase my comfort at home.

Amid all things time flies. At the midsummer
holidays, I had been a year with them. The
school had become a thoroughly good one ; and I
was now told, not very gratefully, that they could

CARLISLE. 165

do without me, and that I could go home if I
wished. It was the arrangement that I was to have
fifteen pounds for the year, but as yet I had been
paid nothing. Instead of this I was reminded of
the privileges I had enjoyed. I had gone out for my
French for an hour, two evenings a week, and had
the advantage of reading various works, especially
two volumes of Fichte. It was unkindly said I had
soiled these volumes, and in consequence I agreed
to take them as part of my salary. But nothing
more was ever offered me, and I had not the
courage to demand it as I ought

CHAPTER XIII.

In the meantime, my father had written for me to
go home, if I were disengaged, as I had now been
away nearly ten years, seeing no one belonging to
me all that time. It was a long and expensive
journey, and one I could by no means afford to
undertake. My money had diminished, till I had
barely enough to pay my fare back into Oxfordshire,
even by taking the cheapest route from Whitehaven
to Liverpool. I was disappointed, weary, and sad,
and needed rest. I longed to see my dear father,
who I knew still believed in me and loved me
He had not approved of my leaving Scotby, seeing
clearly that in my ready generosity, I was running
against my own interest, which I could hardly
afford to do.

So with a very low purse and a sad heart —
leaving the furniture of ray bedroom behind me,
nor asking for my salary due, nor the balance
borrowed from me in Westmorland — I left Carlisle,

CROPREDY. 167

and embarked from Whitehaven at ten o'clock at
night for Liverpool, which latter place we reached
about half-past five next morning.

It was the year of the first great Exhibition in
London of 1851, and there were many passengers
on board. It was the first time I had been on the
sea, and consequently I was very sick, as was
another young lady who, with her brother, was
travelling to the great exhibition. We found it a
very trying voyage, and I mentally vowed, if spared
to reach land, I would never take another voyage
on the sea.

I took the train from Birkenhead to Birmingham
in the morning, where I had a brother living, and
was glad to remain with him a few days before
going further. The sea sickness had turned me
very yellow. The hard work and hard fare, and
the almost total want of fresh air and animal food,
of which in early days I had enjoyed an unstinted
supply, had had their due effect on my form and
features, which were by no means flattering. I
looked, by the aid of this final incident, rather like
a person recovering from a fever, and quite unlike
the stout, fresh coloured, blooming country girl I
was when I left home.

1 68 MARY SMItH.

The result was, that when I reached my native
village, hardly anyone out of my own family knew
me. One young woman, who had lived at the
school to which I went, and had known me inti-
mately, curtsied to me profoundly as I walked
down the village street, and on my turning and
exclaiming **Mary," could hardly believe her own
eyes. "Why," I said, "who did you think I was?*'
To which she replied, "The vicar's wife/' So it
seems I had acquired in slender gentility what I
had lost in country buxomness.

A day or two after, when I called to see an old
lady, a neighbour and friend of our family, she
exclaimed on seeing me, **Why, Mary, wherever
have you beeni Where is that place? Why, I
shouldn't have known you. You were a nice girl
before you went away — and now you are quite
spoil't." Alas ! it was quite true, so far as my looks
were concerned. My good looks, if such I ever
had, had vanished 'neath hard work and study,
spare diet, and the pressure of hard town life.
But thank God — as I do to this day — I had come
back untarnished by crime of any kind.

After nearly ten years' absence, I began in a few

CfeOPREDY. 169

weeks to feel very much out of my element at
home, as I had no occupation. I became anxious,
even very eager for something to do, for I had but
a shilling or two left. So I looked over all manner
of advertisements, seeking an assistant teacher's or
preparatory governess's situation ; for alas ! I had
no accomplishments, so called. No music, nor
singing, nor dancing; no German, Italian, and very
little French ; nor any fine manners.

I was simply an uncorrupted girl, with a
plain education, who knew thoroughly grammar,
geography, practical arithmetic, and the general run
of things then taught in respectable middle class
schools. Besides, I was brimful of knowledge, which
had been gathered from my vast and multifarious
reading in history, science and literature. But I
was dismayed. Every advertisement I read, even
for farmers' families in the country, required music
and French, and the various accompaniments of
what was called "genteel education."

But it gratified the vanity of ignorant parents,
who were able to boast of their daughters having
learned French. Their music did not fare much
better, as it was rare to find a piano, or even bar-

170 MARY SMITH.

monium, in country farm houses at that period.
The farming class did not understand the need of
practice, so that in all but exceptional cases the
young **miss" who had got a bit of music at the
boarding school, soon lost it for the want of an
instrument to practice on. But what then ? The
old mother, who dressed in black silk, with flowing
lace veil, could boast that **Mary Ann'* had learnt
French and music at the boarding school. Its real
end — a sad one — being to make her think she
should keep her hands white, her ringlets always
in curl, and wear her good dresses every day, as
she did when she went to school.

To return to my story. With this state of things,
I did not find it easy to get a situation, as they all
wanted more than I could honestly promise. It is
true, I was continually writing after some situation,
and continually being disappointed. My father
perceiving this, said: "You have a good home.
Why not remain where you are?" He, at least,
was glad of my company.

In those bright summer evenings, after I had sat
in my room all day studying French grammar and
French history, I found it very sweet to sally forth

CkOPREDY. 171

up the dear old country roads, to meet him coming
home with the pony and trap from his rounds of
registration, paying the poor of the parish, etc. Of
course I got a ride home with him, under the large
and beautiful trees, which in Oxfordshire adorn
everywhere the broad grassy roads, whose tall
luxuriant hedgerows were then fragrant with their
garlands of summer flowers.

Our talk was often somewhat sad, for I was daily
disappointed of some situation or other. He had a
patient ear for all my little confidences, and was
always ready with some hopeful Scripture word of
encouragement and cheer. "Ah ! my wench," he
often said, "we are like Jacob of old. We often
say, *AU these things are against us,* but could we
see further and clearer we should see that they are
all for our good."

We are poor judges of the eternal providence,
indeed, as since then I have often found out For
instance, I did not perceive then what renewed
health and strength I was getting from my long
summer rest at Cropredy, nor how I was enlarging
my mental resources by my unrestricted study of
French while there.

172 MARV SMITH.

After I had been at home some two months, my
studies were agreeably interrupted by my younger
brother, George, then unmarried, who had been
successful in business, and who was, in fact, the
very reverse of myself in most things, proposing to
take me, with a party of other friends, to see the
Great Exhibition of 185 1. At the same time, he
generously said I need not think anything about
the expense, as he would pay everything. My
father and mother both urged me to accept the
proposal, knowing that he had the means to do it.

So some time about the latter end of August of
that year, we started off on a week's excursion to
London, to see this latest wonder of the world.
We travelled — as everybody did — by an excursion
train, the first I had any experience of, and all our
party were very weary of it. So long was it on the
road, so wretchedly full of coarse ill-mannered
people, so small attention was given by officials, and
so long and frequent the delays we had to endure.
We started before twelve o'clock at noon from
Banbury, a journey I suppose of about seventy miles,
and did not get to London till past eleven at night.

I felt this all the more, as I had left home in pain

CROPREDY. 173

from indigestion. However, George, who was much
disgusted, declared he would not travel back by
that mode whatever he paid. On this account, we
decided to return by the other line, and have a little
time at Oxford, to see the ancient city and its
famous colleges, which we did.

We had comfortable lodgings at an hotel in
Charterhouse-square, the proprietor of which was a
near relative to one or two of our party. Country
folks as we were, we naturally made the exhibition
our first object, setting off for Hyde Park directly
after breakfast, about nine o'clock, so as to be there
when the doors opened. We went in with the
common people on the shilling day ; though in our
round of the immense palace we met many of our
rich neighbours, country folks as a rule being careful
of their money, and anxious to get things as cheaply
as they can.

We exhausted our morning in wandering every-
where over this arena of art, in our anxiety to see
all^ and were glad to sit down near the large
fountain, and get an early lunch. We found it a
good opportunity for taking mental notes of the
moving myriads passing continually before us of all

174 MARY SMITH.

nations, peoples, kindred, and tongues, for such in
reality they were. Thoroughly tired, we took our
meal leisurely for rest, drawing our liquor from the
sparkling fountain near us, in glasses we had brought
with us.

That over, and reinvigorated by it, we struck
out in another direction, and came upon a world of
wonders of mechanical skill. One of these was a
bedstead so contrived that it could be set like an
alarum to any hour desired, and at that time would
begin, by springs, to fold itself up, and throw the
sleeper out of bed. This feat was being constantly
performed by the originator, to merry crowds of
passing visitors, among whom our party were
detained for a few minutes.

My brother gave me a nudge to look in a certain
direction where, quite near us, stood an old blind
woman, as much interested and as merry as the rest,
as she heard the unfortunate occupant of the bed
thrown out on the floor. The simple party she was
with, probably sons and daughters from some remote
country district, telling and explaining all to her.
Indeed, we almost met with as much to interest us
in the motley multitude of people we passed, as in

CROPREDY. 175

the great world's show itself. Sometimes their
ignorance, and sometimes their mistakes, being so
amusing and odd. But everybody was pleased and
in good humour. It was better than all the "plays."
It was what Englishmen like, especially the middle
classes. It was a great reality, a thing to be seen
and talked about for a life-time ; a kind of Queen
of Sheba's shop, with all the stores of the great
world in it.

Our temperate way of arranging our sightseeing
did not cost us very much, though we saw nearly all
the wonders of London. We were at St. Paul's
Cathedral on Sunday afternoon, and at Madame
Tussaud's on Monday, which was well worth seeing,
though I dare not venture into the chamber of
horrors, nor see any of its criminals. My imagin-
ation was such that I could never have forgotten
them, nor have ceased to see them.

Sightseeing in London is very hard work in hot
weather; especially to thiifty people, who want to
compass everything at the least possible expense ;
who are courageous enough not to want to appear
richer than they arc ; who have no care or fear of
whom they may meet ; and are determined to see

176 MARY SMITH.

all they can in one short week. I still remember
a four-mile walk I took with my brother, along
Oxford-street to Baker-street, one bright sunny
morning, and walking back to our hotel after it.

I was fairly done up ; and we had to have a cab
in the afternoon to go to Westminster Abbey, where
we stayed as long as allowed ; never tired of roam-
ing about its grand historic floors, sacred to fame
and honour, and saintly and sacred worth. The
immortal dead of England are there, if not in their
urns, in their effigies, inciting the uplifted eyes of
the youth of both sexes, and of all classes and
conditions. Our noblest Shakespere was a poor
man's child. In fact, the Abbey is a very inspiring
place for whoever has a mind to think or a heart
to feel.

It is the grandest as well as the holiest spot in
the realm, in which every man's rights are equal ;
the Mecca to which all the sons and daughters of
England should make a pilgrimage once in their
lives. Our visit there was fruitful in blessed mem-
ories, rich in better treasures than knowledge, which
have been to me a soul of good amid things evil.

The next day we went by steamboat to Gravesend,

CROPREDY. 177

seeing Woolwich and Greenwich; we also visited
Chelsea, the latter with its aged pensioners at dinner.
We took tea in Cockney fashion, but not with
shrimps, for neither George nor I could relish them,
having, as my father had, an Erasraian stomach, and
a great aversion to all kinds of fish. We were
fortunate in not being crowded in the boat, and
enjoyed our trip on the river very much.

Returning home at the end of the week, through
Oxford, we stayed there a few hours to see some-
thing of its glories. Nor were we disappointed in
it in so far as we saw, save and except that it seemed
somewhat too small and too little imposing for such
a noble place. But this is more than forty years
ago, and since then the Keble College has been
built, and much done beside. And the old place
has opened its arms free to England's sons of all
sects and denominations, who in return have brought
it many honours.

Our visit was very gratifying at home, where

father was never tired of asking questions, and

hearing us tell him again and again about the

wonderful palace of glass. He had never been in

London ; nor had thousands of the well-to-do men
L 12

X78 MARY SMITH.

and women of the middle classes of England of
that time, even in the midland counties ; their stay
at home habits having engendered in them, in the
first years of the railway, a singular personal dread
of its dangers.

CHAPTER XIV.

I GREW sadder every day as I grew poorer, refusing
to say anything about my wants, but feeling them
intensely. In vain my father talked of patience
and rest. I was determined to fight for my own
living, and be a burden to no one.

At last, in the late autumn — having waited so
long, wanting money and many things — I met with
an advertisement in the Baptist Magazine^ and in
my despair made up my mind to accept it, if it was
at all likely. On scrutinizing it I thought there
was something vague about it; but my brother
urged me to write to the lady, who lived at Bristol,
and make enquiries about it. I did so, which
ended in my engaging to go to her.

I went to Bristol in October, but, strange to say,
from the first I had a miserable presentiment that
in some way — I could not tell how — I should not
succeed. I found at once I was in quite a different
house to any I had been used to. The lady had

l8o MARY SMITH.

but three children; the youngest only about five
weeks old. What I was wanted to do or teach,
seemed somewhat of a mystery. However, she
said we would wait a few days before beginning to
do anything. I could do a little sewing in the
meantime. I did this, and went out in the middle
of the day with the girl — ^who carried the baby —
and the children.

Things were very different to what they had been
at Scotby ; nothing being stated plainly, but with
an amount of reserve. However,! soon learnt a
good deal. I learnt that the poor girl was much
too hard worked ; that she had to leave her work,
just in the middle of it, to go out with me and the
children ; evidently, as it appeared to me, for show.

Then again, I found that meals were irregular
and meagre, and to say the least, I got very hungry,
having often to wait an unmerciful length of time
between them. Further, she made a great profession
of religion, as a Baptist, and yet I saw she was
anxious to make a grand appearance. She put lots
of rings and jewellery on before going to speak to
her friends, which I did not like. Mrs. Sutton
wore no jewels, nor had I any.

BRISTOL. l8l

I was led to observe, with an aching heart, that
a poor washerwoman, who had come to speak to
her, was told that her charge was too high, and that
she could not pay it. At this the poor woman
cried, and said she really could not afford to take
them at a less price. That night I was sore vexed
I had come to such a house, and knew I could
not stay — sham being an abomination in my sight

I found that the husband was a commeicial
traveller, seldom or never at home, but on a Sunday;
an unpretentious man enough, it seemed to me,
who had nothing to do with home affairs, leaving
all these to the management of his wife.

However, in such a plight as I found myself, I
thought it best to seek an interview with the lady,
and frankly ask her to break the engagement I
had now been there more than a week, and nothing
was prescribed for me to do. More than this, I
perceived she was trying and testing me, as though
she had had no testimonials with me. For instance,
I found it was left to me to conduct family worship
extemporarily, every morning, to see if I could do it,
I suppose. I was treated with the utmost distrust,
she herself often speaking of the number of Jesuits

l82 MARY SMITH.

there were about in society — implying, I thought,
that I might possibly be one.

Positively unable to bear it any longer, the next
morning I laid before her my request that she
would break my engagement and let me go, as I
appeared to be doing neither her nor myself any
good. To this she at once replied, somewhat
fiercely : She should not think of doing so for one
moment — said I would get to like Bristol better
by and bye; but in that month of fogs such a thipg
was hardly to be expected ! Thus I was put off day
after day.

On Friday morning I told her decidedly, as she
had refused my wishes, I intended to leave that
afternoon for Birmingham. She saw by my manner
I could assume a higher attitude than shrinking
humility ; and every look and word convinced her
that I was at last terribly in earnest. She only
said, she would write and tell my father. This I
knew she would not do, nor did she.

I had but money enough to get to Birmingham,
which I reached that November day at twelve
o'clock at night. Leaving my luggage at the station,
I set out — midnight as it was — to walk through the

BRISTOL. 183

worse than silent streets. The railway men were
very kind, directing me very carefully. When I got
to ray brother's, I found they were all in bed, but
I soon roused them. Their first words were, "Why,
we thought you were at Bristol?" And mine, "Let
me in, and I will tell you all."

The next day I had ample time to reflect on
what I had done, nor could I see cause to regret it,
though all was dark and hopeless before me. My
father, I knew, fully believed in my doing right (as
did my brother and his wife), only regretting that I
could not take the more easy ,way of staying at
home.

I began at once to cast about for a situation. I
had been corresponding with Mr. J. A. Langford
(now Dr. Langford), whom I knew through his
being a fellow-contributor to the Peoples Journal^
and who, like myself, was then an enthusiastic
aspirant after a literary life. To him I had commun-
icated before leaving Bristol, apprising him of my
coming; and as he was but a working-man then,
on the ground of common equality I sought him
out, and found him all I expected — a kind and
amiable man, full of hope and cheerful light.

1^4 MAkY SMltH.

I had done a bold thing, in writing to Mrs.
George Dawson, asking her to do me any service
in her power. She replied by asking me to call on
her at ten o'clock the next day. It was a frosty
morning when I set off to Edgbaston to keep the
appointment. To me Mrs. Dawson was a very
great person, and on the near prospect of seeing
her I grew very nervous and shy, so that when I
reached the door I could not summon courage to
ring the bell. I walked on a considerable distance,
promising myself to do it promptly when I came
back. At last, in spite of myself, I overcame this
foolish diffidence. I found Mrs. Dawson had
already gone out, but the servant added, "If you
are Miss Smith, I am to be sure to keep you until
she returns." So I went in greatly relieved, and
sat in the library more than an hour. My long
wait had in some measure set me free from my
nervousness. The lady's sudden presence, however,
almost deprived me of speech, but fortunately she,
in her great volubility, made up for my silence.

Seeing my embarrassment, she cut everything
short by saying, "Now, we will go upstairs and
prepare for dinner. You will talk better after

CARLISLE. 185

dinner, I know you will." This greatly discomfited
me, as I had not come prepared for such a recep-
tion. But she would hear of no excuses. She was
a lady of much energy and decision, and did her
own will as a person not to be denied. She
discussed with me all the probabilities of my
getting a situation; and afterwards said she had
had a letter from Mr. Osborn of Carlisle (to whom
she had written on receiving my note), and he had
informed her that they would be glad if I would go
back and help them. She wanted me to decide
then and there, but on my hesitating to do so, she
brought me writing materials and a stamp. Very
reluctantly I wrote a few lines to him, and Mrs.
Dawson sent it off to the post.

To this letter, in a few days, I received an
answer. Mr. Osborn sent a sovereign, and urged
me to return at once to them, saying their school
had increased, and they would be glad to see me.
Knowing that with their large school they must
need help, I decided to go back, thinking that as
he had sent me a kind letter, they had seen their
mistake, and that for the future they would be
more appreciative of my services. I thought alsQ

1 86 MARY SMITH.

that in case the Osborns should not want me, I
might stand a better chance of getting a situation
in Carlisle. Superstitious, perhaps, I was in my
poverty and sorrow ; but through all these months
of depression^ a light beam of hope broke upon me
at times, and I more than half believed that an
unseen hand was leading me to some home of
peace and rest. I was indeed never quite hopeless,
though often cast down.

It was on one of the last days of November,
1 85 1, that I left Birmingham to return to Carlisle,
with no very elated thoughts, and yet with a feeling
that I was not altogether without kind friends.
Reaching the old Border city once more, I drove
to Castle-street, where the Osborns still lived and
had their school. Taking my luggage, the cabman
rang the door bell, which was opened, but in a
minute was slammed violently to again by the wind.
Nobody, neither old nor young, showed face to
welcome me. It was a sad omen, and I saw and
felt it keenly. Next morning, I was up and busy,
taking care to be ready for the school. To my
surprise, I was put into a smaller room with the
younger children, quite apart from the elder ones

CARLISLE. 187

and the master. The larger room I was now never
invited to enter. There might be various reasons
for this course. In the first place, I think he
hardly liked me to have an opportunity of observing
the progress of the pupils. But little things cropped
up that led me to feel certain that progress was
more in appearance than in reality.

The younger pupils under me were all better
writers than readers, and in many other ways I
found the necessary ground work had been neg-
lected. These things, it is true, are getting very
much the fashion in our modern schools, public as
well as private. The days being dark and short, I
was careful to get what I could done in them. As
I expected nothing in payment for my services, nor
had any kind of privileges in return, I thought I
could hardly fail to earn the small pittance I other-
wise received in the way of food and lodgings. It
was, however, by no means a pleasant position for a
person of independent mind. A less shy and
timorous person would have contrived at once to
"better herself. '* Alas for me ! I thought little in
those days of either money or the ordinary affairs
of the world. We rubbed on after this fashion

l8S MARY SMITH.

until the Christmas holidays, although I saw very
clearly that my efforts were looked on with little
favour. Still I was inured to that sort of thing,
nor did it indeed much discomfit me. I had been
invited to come and help them, on account of their
having a large school, and plenty to do, which I
found true enough.

Altogether I seemed to have been led in a very
mysterious way from my home in Oxfordshire,
round by Bristol, Birmingham, and back to Carlisle
again — almost against my will. The conduct of
the lady at Bristol was, to say the least, very strange,
and even inexplicable; and not the least strange
was it Mr. Osborn's sending me a letter full of an
outward show of kindness, and then receiving me
so coldly and showing me so much harshness. Still
in spite of this I toiled on, perceiving that the
prosperity of the school could not possibly last
long, unless more arduous and methodical methods
were adopted.

When about the first three months had expired—
as it drew towards the latter end of February, 1852
— without any hint or forewarning, I received a
note from Mr. Osborn one day, telling me without

CARLISLE. 189

any preface, that I must leave their house in a
week. Of course it startled and stunned me.
How could I get any situation in a week? Or
what could I do ?

My trouble was extreme. I knew not what to
do. I had no money — had been working very
hard for them since November, and now it was the
first of March, and they had offered me nothing,
not even the smallest present. I wept and prayed
all the night. I could see no possibility of getting
such a situation as I wanted in a few days, or
even in a few weeks or months, so I summoned up
courage — stung into resolution by unkindness —
and resolved to open a school on my own account.

Mr. Osborn said I might do this, on condition
that my terms were low, so that I should take no
scholars that would be likely to come to them.
This I agreed to do, and started the same evening
to look for a suitable house. Some of the houses
in Dacre-street were at that time nearly finished or
building. I took one at the corner rather larger
than the rest. This the landlord engaged to have
ready in a week. I got a few circulars printed,
and distributed them myself, a job not at all to my
liking.

CHAPTER XV.

On the Saturday, when my week was up, I went to
my doubly new house. Driven by stress of circum-
stances, I had to remind my friends of the three
pounds they still owed me as the residue of the
money I lent them on leaving Westmorland. This
I told them I must have absolutely, as well as the
furniture of my bedroom, which I had bought on
leaving Scotby. These few things, and the three
pounds just mentioned, together with five pounds
lent me by my brother George, constituted my all
when I embarked upon my new venture.

It was a great change to me going into a small
house, where I had no one but myself, and a heart

«

full of nothing but fears of failure and disgrace,
But I had plenty to do to prepare my little place.
I fitted it up myself, and cleaned and brightened
everything with my own hands. The work made
me cheerful, and sustained me through my troubles
as nothing else could.

CARLISLE. 191

My little enterprise was to begin on Monday,
So on that day I waited and watched and hoped,
still finding some little matter to do or improve.
At last, when it was getting late, I saw a little girl
come to the door and knock. I breathed a prayer
for wisdqm, and quickly ran to let her in. She
told me her simple story, as her mother had bid
her, and I cheerfully welcomed her in, and set her
by the fire. Suddenly, after a long and dubious
pause, another little girl was seen picking her way
over the unflagged path. "Is this Miss Smith's
school?" sh5 asked. I at once answered "Yes,"
and set her down with her companion : glad that
she had one. I still waited for more pupils, but
waited in vain.

Never shall I forget how I longed for the hour
when they should leave, that I might give way to
the pent up feelings that threatened every now and
then to burst forth. However, I had two more in
the afternoon, and six or seven before the week
end. These increased my hopes ; and by the end
of the quarter, my little room was over-crowded,
and I was obliged to try and get a larger and more
convenient place. I was still fearful about doing

192 MARY SMITH.

this, but a friend (the same who had presented me
with a new dress) buoyed me up with her hopeful
talk.

A house being vacant in West Tower-street,
where a Miss Thompson had kept a boarding
school, I at once took it ; though I did not do this
without getting a severe rebuke from Mr. Osborn,
who prophesied I would get into debt, ruin myself,
and disgrace my friends. This prophecy, I am
thankful to say, never came true, for good fortune
still attends all who set to work with an earnest
determination to do their best.

I was seven years at 1 1 West Tower-street. It
was a busy and somewhat eventful time. I have
given a brief glimpse into my inner life, showing
myself up most likely as an incomprehensible being.
My object has been to show the inner cravings of my
soul after literary pursuits, which, being a woman,
I failed to attain, despite of all my self-denial and
persistent endeavours.

My outer life at school and home was on the
whole very prosperous. The knowledge of my tact
as a teacher, and the hard life I had led at the
other school, had been spread far and wide by the

CARLISLE. 193

various scholars. My success was now so far estab-
lished, that to new comers I slightly raised my
terms, as I had more rent to pay.

Having no very intimate friends of my own, my
heart still clung to the Osborns, and in all their
troubles I deemed it my duty, notwithstanding the
harsh treatment I had been subject to, to do what
I could for them in times of trouble or affliction.
Mr. Osborn was a changeable, incautious man. His
school did not continue to prosper long. In three
or four years he had given it up, and engaged in
another and quite different business, so that all
their old jealousies towards me had ceased.

But a more serious trouble fell upon their family

than I had ever anticipated. In the autumn of the

first or second year I was in West Tower-street, a

most fatal epidemic of scarletina visited the town

of Carlisle, carrying off in a few days whole families,

and devastating homes glad with the gay music of

childhood, and making them silent. So it had done

to the poor and lowly, and it had now come to

that of the most learned and pious in the old city

— the Reverend Dean Tait, afterwards Archbishop

of Canterbury. That sad week when the Dean's
X. 13

>94 MARY SMITH.

children were taken day after day to Stanwix
churchyard, Mr. Osbom's were likewise being taken
to the cemetery. The Osboms had seven children,
one boy and six girls. The eldest — a fair, handsome
boy of eleven — was cut off in less than three days.
They lost four children in succession by this terrible
epidemic. During this trying period I acted in the
capacity of sick nurse to them, often sitting up for
two or three nights together.

About this time my affairs prospered amazingly.
I had to have an assistant teacher ; and so full did
my school grow that I saw my house was too small
to hold all. When I had one scholar from a family
I invariably had all the rest, and often the neigh-
bours' children likewise.

Mr. Wingrave, a philanthropic gentleman, who
had at that time a night school for young men and
women, at the Irish Dam-side, asked me, as he
asked other ladies — would I not try and spare a
night or two to help him? I agreed to go two
nights a week, and did so for a considerable time.
Thus I was kept very busy every day in the week ;
and yet gleams of romance came straying once or
twice into my dwelling, where everything was so
circumspect and quiet

CARLISLE. 195

Those who have perused my simple story may
remember how a little romance had blended with
my short period of school life in Westmorland,
which through jealousy or some other cause, came
to nothing. I had thought nothing more of the
affair, nor of any similar affairs. There is no trace
of them in what I wrote about this time. I lived
for different objects.

And yet I was surprised to learn from Mrs.

Osborn, one Saturday morning, that Mr. J ,

from Westmorland, was at their house, and was
coming to see me. I hardly knew how to receive
him. I was engaged with some little household
matter when he called. We talked very quietly.
He told me he had bought an estate in Ireland,
and was then on his way to see it. Of course, I
remembered the story he had confided to Mrs.
Osborn, as she had also ; evidently wishing me to
be prepared. But his being rich was counter-
balanced by grave eccentricities. Riches were the
reverse of attraction to me. I had too independent
a mind to allow anyone to say that they had made
me rich.

I carried myself with much reserve and circum-

196 MARY SMITH.

spection, so as neither by word nor look to make the
impression that his attentions would be gratifying
to me. Both were grave, as those who had
important concerns before them ; and in this spirit
we bade each other good bye, never again to see
one another in this world.

I was not thirty at this time ; and a lady, with
whom I was well acquainted, was extremely anxious
that I should marry her brother. He had a
profitable business in the city, of which she was
continually telling me, with much praise, but with
no success. At last, I received a formal offer of
marriage from him. This simply amused me. I
got to know that it was not written by himself, as
he was nearly blind. It was a pure business
transaction that was proposed. It was known I
was poor. I never took any pains to conceal it, and
a good business was of itself thought a fair prize
for an intellectual woman who was struggling with
poverty. What an alliance ! What presumption !

These things made little impression upon me.
I had higher visions than matrimony; literature,
poetry, and religion gleamed fair before me. Had
I been a young man^ how gladly should I have

CARLISLE. 197

gone into the Nonconformist ministry, and should
probably have been accepted. But as a woman I
had to struggle with all sorts of difficulties, hard-
ships, and insults ; being in the world, but not of
it, nor aspiring after any of its flimsy gewgaws.

At West Tower-street, I had two boys who were
brothers, one four and the other six, brought to me
as boarders. They were the children of my former
friend. Miss Jackson of Carlisle, who had married
Mr. Harkness of Preston, printer and bookseller.
They were with me several years.

Nearly one of the first steps I took in that large
house, was to let some of the rooms to a widow
woman and her daughter. This was Mrs. Cock-
bain, an old Baptist friend, whom I greatly
respected. I had two or three reasons for doing
this. I thought it would be both company and
protection for me. Having had great troubles in
her married life, she had become a most sincere
religious enthusiast. Her lonely prayer, clear-voiced
on the midnight, sometimes struck on my absorbed
senses as I sat studying less divine, but not less
needful things, in my little sitting room ; and then
beginning very low with her afterwards clearly

198 MARY SMITH.

chaunted hymn, ever uplifting me and making me
feel blessedly at home. But what power is there
like Religion to sanctify and bless and gladden the
dreariest house, and to bring peace and joy into
the loneliest habitation ?

So it was with my old friend. She had little of
what the worid boasts of, but she had something
far more precious. She was rich in God's pure
peace and blessing. This homely story may give a
side glance view of a simple scene of which none
was witness but myself. Soon after Mrs. Cockbain
and I had settled down at 11 West Tower-street,
there was to be a public execution at the gaol at
Carlisle. We neither of us believed in public
executions, but our belief was more than mere
negation. I wrote letters to the newspapers, advo-
cating anti-capital punishment views; while my
poor friend (who knew nothing of this) followed
her Bible and the promptings of her own heart,
and had nothing at all to say in defence of her
humane thoughts.

To take a man's life in the open light of day, in
the sight of unreflecting youth and children, seemed
an awful thing to me; and I was determined to

CARLISLE. 199

prevent any of my pupils witnessing the shcx:kingly
demoralizing scene, which was to take place at
noon, when they usually left school. To this end
I was walking to and fro, in front of the house, in
a spirit of the deepest solemnity. All the time I
did this, my friend, who was in her little parlour,
was kneeling, with her bonnet and shawl on, at a
chair — she had been up the street to see the prepar-
ations — and on coming back was so overcome that
she had sunk down there. While the bell was
tolling, she had been praying, with a voice of the
most solemn supplication, for the soul of the con-
demned man. I always in my heart loved this
singularly good woman, because of her sublime
sense of real religion.

CHAPTER XVI.

There is not much in a struggling life like mine to
interest the general reader. From the day I carried
my resolution out and stood alone, all things
conspired to my prosperity. I spoke to no one
about it, but by the kind sympathizing looks and
words I met everywhere, everyone seemed to know
— and I really think they did in some mysterious
way — so fully aware did they seem to be of the
hard struggle I had had to do right.

But in the cross I had voluntarily taken, I felt
divine strength. My feet were firm, and if I had
no very brilliant hopes, neither had I any certain
fears. A mystic by nature, loneliness made me
much more so now, and there were things at times
that were unaccountable to me. Here is one which
long lay secret in my own heart, and not till many
years after its occurrence, became what we. call true.
One day, suddenly, a certain passage I could not
remember reading before persistently followed me,

CARLISLE. 20 1

and presented itself to my mind. Over and over
again it did this, as a solemn song in my soul, till
at last I was obliged to take notice of it in its
endless occurrence to my mind. "And those that
afflicted thee, shall come bending unto thee, and
thine enemies shall lick the dust; and thy wings
shall be covered with silver, and thy feathers with
yellow gold."

This poetic passage of scripture was part of it
fulfilled before many months were over, and the
latter and more hyperbolical part in a way eventually.
I was, as will be seen, like all religious people, very
superstitious, and still am so. To another, all this
would be false; to me it was a mysterious truth
that the years have never dimmed nor darkened.
Among other things it helped to comfort and
strengthen my heart in my many trials, and gave
me courage to hope in the future.

My school increased more and more, for if I lost
my best scholars, I had still new ones brought. So
I worked on, little disconcerted by my difficulties,
nor was my life unhappy. I had no debts. My
work was my comfort ; and the few friends who
called to pay their bills were warm in their thanks

20d MARY SMITH.

and praise. With my increasing school, I had to
have a permanent assistant. My two boy boarders
necessitated this. I no longer let any part of my
house, but filled it all with busy life.

My terms were so very low, that hard as I
worked, I did little more than pay the most
economical household expenses. My dread of debt
was worse than anything else, sometimes casting
me down very low ; and yet I had not courage to
raise my terms, nor did I see how I could do so
without endangering my school. Yet fearing many
things, I contrived to save a little, spending nothing
on fine dress or furniture, I kept none but the
plainest company. One or two poet friends —
working men — who occasionally called to see me
on a Sunday ; religion and poetry being the subject
of their talk, or the last new book, or the reviews.

The cotton, famine and the American war of
emancipation occurred at this time, which afforded
constant matter for interesting conversation in
every circle. In England there were two parties,
north and south; those who stood for property,
and those who stood for right. I stood for what I
thought was the right* I had been brought up in

CARLISLE. 203

the air of freedom by my Nonconformist father;
and wherever a voice breathed a prayer, or song, or
shout of liberty, it thrilled through my very soul.
I remember well, when very young, hearing the
Rev. Eustace Carey preach, and in his enthusiasm
crying out : "Proud America! Boasting America !
with thy Stars and Stripes ! And yet it waves in
mockery over three million slaves !"

It was a chapter and a sermon ; and yet the
great human heart that listened, out of its deep
silences, burst forth in loud bravos. From that hour
slavery appeared to me as one of the curses of the
world. So I fully knew my mind on this occasion.

We had had the Crimean war before this time,
with which I had little sympathy. I have always
had the singular faculty, for a woman, of forming
my own judgment on such things. It was a great
quarrel among kings, fought out for their good,
at the expense of the common people. A wise
and just man, like Oliver Cromwell, would have
sent the whole lot of them to the right about.

But with other ladies in Carlisle, and other towns
of England, I felt much for the poor soldiers, the
victims of this cruel war. Along with my elder

204 MARY SMITH.

pupils, I set to work to minister to their comfort.
My little parlour was filled with busy people for
many weeks during the late autumn evenings. To
the aid and sustenance of these men, Florence
Nightingale, one of the noblest ladies in England,
had gone forth.

So we worked and talked, with many hundreds
of Englishwomen, in those dark days; collecting
the money first to buy wool and worsted, flannel
and warm calicoes, which we made into shirts and
drawers, or knit into mufflers, stockings, gloves,
socks, and all sorts of useful things. With glowing
hearts, these were packed into large packages, and
sent off with others which went from Carlisle to the
far off battle field.

About this time I made the acquaintance of
a singularly enthusiastic orator, Mr. Washington
Wilks, who was living at Blackwell House, near
Carlisle. He came to the town as editor of the
Carlisle Journal^ but holding views too advanced
for the organ of the old Whig party, he became the
first editor of a new local venture, the Carlisle
Examiner, He had been on the staff of the
Morning Star^ a London radical and democratic

CARLISLE. 205

paper. I first met him at one of the popular
Saturday night lectures, which he instituted for
working men, and where he attracted great crowds
of hearers.

Soon after Mr. Wilks came to the old city, there
was a parliamentary election, and at such times
there usually was a great deal of bitter resentful
language used on both sides. Squibs of all kinds
were flying about ; and persons' faults and peculi-
arities occasionally were cruelly pressed into the
service of politics. I protested against this as
wrong; and Mr. Wilks and Dr. Evans agreeing
with me, invited me to help them to bring out a
small tract against it, while the election lasted.

I very willingly agreed to do this, writing short
tales illustrative of what was wanted, scraps of
conciliatory verse, etc. This plan we carried out,
issuing our little tracts anonymously, mostly at
intervals of two or three days, at our own expense,
and giving them away wherever acceptable. Our
object was to induce all parties to use more
courteous speech, and observe more christian
feeling in their political agitations. But the old
noisy spirit and feeling prevailed very much at that
time in the city.

206 MARY SMITH.

In every assembly for the discussion or settle-
ment of business, very strong language was the
rule, and citizens did not fail to hear very graphic-
ally of all their faults and offences, known or
unknown. Very grotesque epithets were often
applied to upright and respectable men, merely to
create a laugh ; but woe to him whose character
would not bear public inspection ! To such an
one, all his private misdeeds suddenly became
public ones, caricatured twenty-fold.

So it was in the Town Council, as often as it
met. To the northerners it only excited a laugh ;
but to people like Mr. Wilks and myself, and others
from the south, it was a thing to be deeply deplored,
and silently discouraged, if by no other means. An
editor who came to Carlisle from London about
this time, once said to me, "Do you ever read the
Town Council proceedings. Miss Smith? Isn't it
awful !" And surely it was. We felt that at this
election time, it would be wise to attempt some-
thing, at least, in the right direction. It bore some
fruit, for many of the elite of the working men, as
well as the religious community, took it up and
cultivated it in their meetings.

CARLISLE. 169

Mr. Wilks* influence and spirit, during the three
or four years he was in Carlisle, had a very salutary
effect on the aspiring working men of the old city.
In all towns, their better life and tendency, both in
religion and politics, often receives its impetus
from some one or two men who through ability
and example are constituted their leaders.

Mr. Osborn had before this gathered the working
men to his classes, and led them to feel the
worth of self-respect and the value of education,
by producing for them his "Short Grammar" and
"Handbook of Logic." They joined his class in
great numbers, in the Independent school-rooms,
Lowther-street. They learned much from him,
which led them to thoughtful, studious habits, not
readers only, but men who could think and decide
a point for themselves. Mr. Osborn, poor man !
might perl^aps have been better thought of in
Carlisle — for he certainly did much good there —
had it not been for the instability of his character.

From the first, Mr. Wilks delivered Saturday
night lectures in the Shaddongate school-room,
free of charge, which attracted crowded audiences,
for a considerable time. He was a thinker as well

208 MARY SMITH.

as an eloquent speaker, and was author of "The
Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century." Best of
all, he was a man of an eminently religious spirit,
and could preach an eloquent sermon. His lectures
and newspaper articles, though often ultra radical,
were invariably very inspiring.

He fraternized very freely with the working-men,
esteeming himself one of them. He was always
ready to do them any good in his power ; and they,
on their part, believed in him with an implicit
faith, so that long after he had left Carlisle, a
report of his coming would bring a great crowd to
hear him. It was at these lectures I met many
of the elite of the working men, such as Thomas
Hardy, James Walker, Robert Wales, and others.

I got more settled and reconciled to my way of
life, fining it completely with various labours which
were constantly in hands. I helped Lonsdale with
his Observer^ writing at that time under the no?ii de
plume of "Mary Osborn." It was while looking
over the gardens at the back of Fisher-street, in
May, that I wrote, "May Musings," which was
published in the Obsen^er,

While in West Tower-street I was very assiduous

CARLISLE. 209

with my German, having my books always handy
to fill up any vacant interval of time. Such was
my ardour, that I soon achieved a fair amount of
success, so far as Schiller's plays and poetry were
concerned. The idiom of Goethe's writings, I
found less to my liking. Nor did I think favourably
of the style and spirit of his works, which I never
could induce myself to admire. I always fancied
him devoid of veneration, though I admit there are
fine passages in Wilhelm Meister, otherwise I think
he has done more than any other writer to introduce
that spirit of secularism that now so extensively
prevails in literature and amongst literary people.

I was soon able to read and enjoy Schiller, and as
I took care to get his plays in German, they were
taken about with me wherever I went. In learning
it, I had little idea of ever teaching it ; nor did I
but once try to do so, and then it was to help an
orphan boy, and so save the expense of his getting
a master.

I had now been seven years in West Tower-street,

having gone there in 185 2. Year by year my school

had gone on increasing, till the place was really too

small for it. It was here it developed largely into
L 14

ftC MARY SMITH.

a school for the education of farmers* daughters
and ethers, whose parents saw them on the verge
of womanhood with very little knowledge or in
almost total ignorance. These hearing of me as
one who took much pains with dunces and the
neglected, sent their children to me a few quarters
to get a bit of education. I tried to interest them
in it so far as to make them see and feel that it
was a delightful thing, and quite worth all the pains
and trouble bestowed upon it. I tried to impress
upon them, that a young woman without education
had been sadly wronged and injured, but that with
it she had opportunities of rising higher in society
than by any other means.

My pupils from the first were struck with my
simple ways and the absence of tuitional hauteur,
and my odd ways, "like a mother," of telling them
bits of things in explanation of the life and nature
around them. So that some tiny boy or girl inter-
ested father and mother very much at dinner by
telling them what I had said that morning about
insect or animal life, or why we should have the
windows open and our skins quite clean. The old
methods were never altogether mine. I believed

CARLISLE. 211

with deep reverence in the Bible of Nature, as well
as that of Moses and the Prophets.

My house, in a great measure, now became
pleasant to me. I had no critics to interfere with
my doings; and though I felt my isolation very
much at times, I contrived to fill my life with all
sorts of work, both for myself and others. My
school, of course, was always my first and foremost
object. I made it a rule from the beginning that I
was only to be called out of it by those who wanted
me respecting it. Others must see me at some
other time. This rule I kept all through the yeart
I had a school. But my terms — principally through
Mr. Osborn's interference — were exceedingly low,
and having no help nor capital to begin with, I was
kept very poor.

But I was not without annoyances and vexations.
After good Mrs. Cockbain left, she had recom-
mended me to a Scotchwoman, a Presbyterian and
a widow, the mother of two growing youths. The
boys were clerks in lawyers' offices, steady blame-
less young men. The mother could talk a good
deal, especially about her religion. She was a very
regular attendant on Sundays, and consequently

212 MARY SMITH.

beguiled me into believing her words and accepting
her as Mrs. Cockbain*s successor.

This universal belief in people often brought me
into trouble, placed as I was among strangers. It
did so in this case. I soon found her talk was a
froth of falsity, which I hated ; that she neglected
every home duty; put her best things on in a
morning, and went out gossipping, leaving her
poor boys to come home to their dinner, when
there was neither food nor fire for them. More
than that, instead of paying at the week end, she
told me fine stories of a rich Scotch uncle, who
was coming to see her and bring her money, but
who never did come.

I was easy with her at the first, and being
surrounded with trouble at the time, she got three
or four pounds in my debt before I was able to
take any steps about it. I felt she must leave, and
told her so ; and told her also that her furniture,
which I found she was selling, must be left until

«

she had paid what she owed me.

I went to Fisher-street at the Whitsuntide Term,
1859. The sun shone brightly as we packed the
large cart, which came for the furniture at four

CARLISLE. 2t3

o'clock in the morning. I loved privacy, and had
an idea of getting all away soon after six. I was
determined to go on as I had begun, without any
pretence, or show, or display of any kind. The
years I had just ended in Tower-street had been
prosperous ones, through hard work and economy.
I left much richer than I came. I bought addi-
tional furniture while there, paying for it when got,
for I carried out my principle of owing no man
any thing.

Life was getting very busy and full of responsi-
bility to me. In going through Preston to Oxford-
shire, I stopped a few days with Mr. Harkness, the
father of two of my scholars. He was a printer,
and took me over his works, telling me all about
them. I told him I had a large number of occasional
poems, which I had some thoughts of getting printed
at some future time, when I could afford it. I
thought privately it was perhaps my duty to return
something back in this way, for what I had been
paid for his boys' schooling.

So without much thought or reflection, we con-
cluded our bargain. When they came to hand,
the books distressed and tried me very much. In

114 I^ARY SMITH.

every way they were such as I could take no
pleasure in. I had the feeling that the bill for
them must be paid before I could ever have a bit
of rest. Truly I watered my pillow with tears. It
took all the sense of vanity out of me. I don't
think I realized a single pound by the transaction.

I took no interest at all in the volume ; hardly
thought it right to offer it for sale, though I knew
that no one need be ashamed of the most part of
the poems it contained. Thomas Carlyle and his
wife had commended them as full of thought, and
one of the pieces as like singing', but to promote
the sale of them by any means, with so many
imperfections, I never could — nor did — do.

However, one thing occurred, which comforted
me very much, though I only named it to a few
intimate friends. An excellent review of the book
appeared in the Carlisle Journal. A young man,
sub-editor at the time, I was told was the writer of
it. It was no petty partial praise, but was full and
hearty.

But I had sunk very low in spirits, and the few
friends who spoke highly of them, found me in no
mood to be flattered. Mr. Wilks was leaving

CARLtSLfi. 215

Carlisle. In his last lecture at Shaddongate, he
referred to my poems, praised them very much,
and quoted some stanzas from the one entitled
" Opportunity."

Doubt and gloom and needless sorrow,
Have no need the mind to gloom ;
What comes not to-day, to-morrow
Will on golden pinions come.
Come as comes the light of morning,
Come as come the stars of night,
Come God's visits without warning.
Crowning life with glory bright.

I gave away many copies of my volume. In ^bout
a year's time I got the whole bill paid, after which
I managed to get the annoyance of it off my mind,
but not till then.

My greatest grief was that the only eyes which
would have looked kindly on my verses were those
of my dear father, and they were closed in death
before the volume appeared. I, who loved him so
much, had a nice plain white stone put at his grave,
choosing, for my own gratification, to do all at my
own expense. That stone is still standing, with
two lines of my awn on it, in Cropredy churchyard

CHAPTER XVII.

Owing to the circumstance of my house in Fisher-
street being wanted for some particular purpose, I
was obliged to look out for an abode for myself,
and a school-room for my pupils. Driven to decide,
I succeeded in taking a place in Finkle-street, a
large roomy house, with a snug plot of open ground
behind. It was not by any means a fashionable
house, nor was it situated in a fashionable street,
and yet the neighbourhood was a highly respectable
one. Immediately in front, the old Friends' burial
ground, planted with lilacs and laburnums, made it
a perfect paradise of beauty and fragrance in spring
time.

Altogether this was the best house I ever
occupied. I was not likely to feel anything like
being cramped in it. Dr. Elliott, calling on me
for some purpose one Saturday evening, when I
happened to be out, went with my girl over the
house and backyard, all of the rooms of which were

CARLtSLlS. 217

carefully cleaned every week. He left word that he
was very much pleased with what he had seen; that
it was very healthy, and was quite fit for a school.
Hence I could speak with confidence to that effect,
when anxious mothers brought delicate children to
me.

I went to the house in Finkle-street at Whitsun-
tide, 1 86 1, occupying it as long as I was able to
conduct a school. I afterwards lived in it in my
private capacity for another year, and then left for
the south.

It was while at this house that I began regularly
those long walks for my health, along the Brampton
road, by Whiteclosegate, and often in the delightful
summer nights as far as Brunstock bridge, to have
a contemplative sit there, in near vision of Draw-
dykes castle and its lively country life. Or on a
lovely summer Sunday, round by Linstock and
Rickerby — a delightful walk for any lover of nature.
Many a line have I composed there " far from the
madding crowd."

I often thought the view looking over Carlisle in
the direction of West Cumberland, from the rising
ground at Whiteclosegate, very fine, almost finer

2iS Mary sMitH.

than anything else in the neighbourhood Going
from Whiteclosegate to Brunstock bridge, you
descend one of the most beautiful broad roads
I have seen in the north. It is like those of my
native county, well set with trees on both sides, and
high banked with an abundance of lovely wild
flowers.

I have got there abundantly on summer evenings,
handfuls of fragrant wild woodbine; and there,
and there only, as in my native wanderings, have I
heard the merry cuckoo sounding its own name
from the far woodlands. This road is a remarkably
rural one. Hence I adopted it as one for my
constant walk; and I seemed to enjoy it all the
more when I got used to it. And if, as often
happened, I was told I met friends, looked them in
the face, and yet did not see them, they excused me,
knowing that I had lost myself, or that the spell of
some poetic dream had seized me.

Coming back one Sunday afternoon in summer
with a poet friend to whom I could express my
admiration only by a gesture now and then, as he
was quite deaf, he said as we neared Rickerby, " I
lose a great deal now, I see, by not being able to

CARLISLE. 21$

hear your talk at such a time as this." I simply
bowed a mute assent, knowing that he also felt the
great spirit that had taken possession of me.

Was it this great spirit that took possession of
the mind of Christ on the hills of Judea? or of
other divine men in other parts of the world?
Anywise, we might cultivate the blessed solitudes
of nature with much advantage to our spiritual
experiences. In getting and spending, we truly lay
ws^te our lives ; nor does money compensate us for
the grandeurs we rob ourselves of thereby.

We need to read the American stoic, Emerson,
and learn what divine strength there is in nature,
and how poor we are, isolated from her in towns.
Whenever I was going to read or speak, in the after
time, I always tried to get a walk up my favourite
road before doing so. But he will understand little
of the blessed secrets of nature who goes off to his
communion with a heart devoid of prayer. He
must absolve himself to her, and breathe her pure
breath; give himself to a great purpose, and she
will help him as she only can.

Mr. Joseph Hannah, who at that time had a
large prosperous mixed school in Carlisle, an excel-

^30 MARY SMitH.

lent teacher and a sensible man — though I never
had the advantage of his acquaintance — I heard
spoke very well of me as a teacher. A great many
of my pupils had in the course of time come under
him, and he had found them well forward, especially
in all the first branches of learning. I was told he
would often set any new pupil who had been at my
school up to read a poem to him, just to hear how
well he could do it. This implied that the little
head, young as it was, knew all about it, and could
understand the poetry as well as read it. When
enthusiasts teach, children will soon learn.

Mr. Hannah often remarked to parents that they
could not do better than let their children stop
with me. I was very grateful to him, as I ought to
be, for saying it. And let me say it, he had nothing
to get by being generous to me.

Many of my boys also went to the Grammar
School. So early as when Mr. Durham was head
master, this was the case. A gentleman, whose
two boys went there, told me that the first morning
one of them was there, the second master was
struck with the good writing of the new scholar.
He forthwith took it up to Mr. Durham, who sent

CARLISLE. 221

for his eleven year old pupil, and said to him,
"Who taught you to write, my boy?" The reply
was, "Miss Smith, if you please, sir." Mr. Durham
said, "Miss Smith knows how to teach boys to
write."

I merely state this to show that I taught, or
attempted to do so, thoroughly well. The eyes of
little boys often twinkled when they came up to me
with their first copies. Whenever I could praise,
I did so heartily. " Why, this is really capital !
You^ll soon be a good writer : one of the best in
the school, I can see." No cane in Christendom
could have wrought the magic those few words
did.

Approach them the right way, children like to
learn, though you may have failed to learn what.
I once had a little fellow, restless and idle. I could
not find out anything he would do in the way of
work. One day there was a clear outline of a
beautiful bird on a copybook back lying on the

desk. Seeing it, I involuntarily said, as I held it up
for all to see, "I wonder who could draw me this?"
All were silent; but by and bye, I saw my little
restless friend kneeling up to the desk, slate and

222 MARY SMITH.

pencil in hand. He soon drew a very accurate
outline of the bird, and having done so, left his slate
on the desk for me to see, being too shy to bring
it up.

But I was observant, and seeing all eyes turned
to Joseph^s slate, I also went to examine it. For a
child who had never begun to draw, it was wonder-
ful; indeed, all the school wondered. I saw he
was watching my face to see, rather than hear, what
I would say. I turned to him with a kindly smile,
and said: "Now, Joseph, I have found out what
you can do well ; better than any of us." And yet
it came to pass that the boy never accomplished
anything in an artistic line. His father, a prosperous
man of business — to whom I sent word that Joseph
might become a successful painter — I was led to
understand had no higher aim of the thing than sign
painting. And the little fellow was soon after
sent to another school, perhaps as a result of my
communication.

In the first quarter of my school life, I had helped
Mr. Wingrave with an evening class of poor girls,
of about fifteen or sixteen, at the Irish-damside.
They were for the most part street vendors of yellow

CARLISLE. 223

clay. Other ladies also assisted occasionally. These
girls learnt much by association, as well as by their
books and slates. Many were shy, modest girls,
ashamed to say they could not read, till I, whispering
to them, invited them into some corner, and tried
to teach them. A number thus learnt to read and
write a little in a short time, very proud of their
progress.

This class was held in a large old room of what
had once been a dwelling house, approached by a
lobby upstairs. Being situated in a low neighbour-
hood, rough boys with sticks came every night and
rattled at the door. Mr. Wingrave was out one
night, and as we had only a very young man in the
room, we were somewhat afraid. However, I went
to the door, and called to a big bare-headed boy,
with a great stick in his hand, " It's Dan I want."
He at once came. I knew him to be the worst of
the gang; but I said, "Now, Dan, as Mr. Wingrave
is away, I want you to stand at the door here, and
keep those rough boys away."

He showed his Irish nature by a fine bow, and a
"Yes, ma'am;" and he kept the door effectually,
save that I once had to go out and ask him not to

224 MARY SMITH.

hurt any one, as I feared he was doing. From that
time he came every night to his post. We invited
him in, gave him a book, and if he got nothing
else, he got a Httle civilization.

Two or three years after, as my pupils went out
in the morning at West Tower-street, one of them
ran back to tell me, with some surprise, that some
one wanted to speak to me at the door. It was
my old acquaintance, Dan, cleanly washed and
dressed, with a basket on his arm, and a bag on his
back. He had plates and dishes in his basket, and
bones, I suppose, in his bag.

I exclaimed, "Why, Dan, is that you?" With
the old smile and bow, "Yes, ma'am," he replied.
I asked after his sister, one of the best in the school,
who had not been able to read before attending
there. He said she had got a place now, and told
me other things, but never once asked me to buy.
"Now I know where you live, ma'am, I am glad,"
was his final salutation. Poor Dan ! his cleanly
courteous Irish face has been one I have ever
remembered with gratitude.

But knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll ;
Chill penury repressed their noble rage,
And fro^e the genial current of the soul,

CARLISLE. 225

I had a deep longing at this time to do some
good in the world. I hardly knew what. My
ambition had been from an early period to write
books ; but my hard work and added years (for I
was now getting up to forty) had taught me that
for this, like many other things, I had no means to
carry out such an object, but must follow patiently
the harder and narrower fortunes of meaner women.
But I was resolved to do what I could, and to do
that in a right spirit, never making gain my sole
and only aim.

So when I was asked to help in an evening

school for factory girls, carried on at that time by

the Carrs, I very willingly agreed to do so. Mr.

James Carr said if I could go four nights a week,

they could have a double school ; that is, one set

of girls coming the first two nights, and another set

the next two. To this I consented, and the idea

was carried out. Other ladies attended, though no

one but myself went more than two nights a week.

I did full duty there for more than a year.' At that

time I had a very trustworthy girl I could leave at

home, to take care of my house. The coming and

going to and from Caldewgate, where the school
L 16

226 MARY SMITH.

was held, was trying to me on wet and wintry
nights.

It was about this time that I first began to give
little sketches in the newspapers. I sent many
things of this sort to the Carlisle Express^ which
they were always glad to receive. The Rev. W. J.
Tweddle came to preach the anniversary sermons
at the Fisher-street Wesleyan chapel for many years.
These sermons were often very badly reported in
the newspapers. Knowing me to have a gift for
such work, Mr. Tweddle once said, " Miss Smith,
they do make such work with my sermons. I wish
you would take them in hand."

From that time I did so, and they generally
filled a column in the Express, I also reported
the sermons of the Rev. W. R. Percival in exienso
for the same paper.

But I had had a yet harder task to do in this
way, some years before, when the Carlisle Examiner
was in the hands of Mr. Tuck, on the West-walls.
Dean Close, soon after coming to Carlisle, gave two
lectures exclusively to women ; not a man was to
be admitted, not even a reporter. And this rule
was rigidly enforced.

CARLISLe. 227

In this extremity, Tuck sent to me — ^would I
kindly go to the meeting, and send them a report?
so his note ran. I replied I would see what I
could do; but the lecture was that night, and I
had not got a ticket. I sent everywhere, but could
not get one. What was I to do? Try a kind
word. The place was full when I went. I said to
the man who stood at the door, to put people in
their seats, " Please let me in. I have no ticket,
but I have an object in view." He let me in with-
out demur, taking me down — it was in the old
Athenaeum — to the bottom seat close to the
platform.

Presently the dean came in by himself, and
mounted the platform, looking round as he did so
on his full audience of women, and saying in a
jubilant voice, "Now we have none of those
reporters here to-night, and we can say what we
like." He could have laid his hand on my head,
so near was I to him. I said to myself, " Wait a
wee, good master dean. I am here to do what I
can." I followed him closely for two hours till he
hod done. I then posted home, sent my boarders

228 MARY SMITH.

to bed, and finished my report before I went
myself.

To the surprise of all — the dean the most of
all — the report appeared in the paper the next
morning, and at the top of it was the announce-
ment, "From our Lady Reporter." I did not
agree to this. But nobody believed it was a
woman, not even the dean, though he accepted
the report, and sent copies of it to his friends.

When he came to the next lecture, he said he
believed a man in woman's clothes had been there
and reported it. At this meeting, which was a
fortnight after the first, I was there half an hour
before the time. I found to my dismay the place
was quite full, and the doors were shut. No more
were to be admitted, although there was a hundred
or two outside. I was at a loss to know what to
do. But a thought struck me that I might get in
with the dean when he came. Had the dean
come ? I asked, and found not.

So I started off down Lowther-street, to meet
him. I soon saw his giant-like figure coming
along, with a great staff in his hand. He was
quite alone, and I walked quietly a little behind

CARLISLE. 229

him on one side. As many people were about,
no one noticed it. When we came to the door the
dean gave it a hearty rap, and everybody gave way
to him. Keeping a steadfast step by him, I went
in unobserved by his side. No one conceived that
I did not belong to him. Once in, I hastened to
get forward into the hall. Two girls were taking
tickets, and they demurred to letting me pass ; but
leaving my ticket with one of them, I sprang
forward. I saw clear enough that I should have
to stand, and did so for nearly two hours — all the
time the lecture lasted.

This time, when the dean came on the platform,
he ran his eye round the vast audience, looking, as
it were, to see if he could detect this man in
woman's clothes, who calls himself "Our Lady
Reporter." In the interval everyone scrutinized
her neighbour, and I, of course, to avoid obser-
vation, did as the rest did. This was repeated more
than once during the lecture, so he seemed to be
bent on finding the "man in woman's clothes."

But I stood firm, and his second lecture, as the
first, duly appeared, filling nearly two columns of
the Examiner^ of which he confessed he bought

^30 MA&y SAII'TH.

many to send to his friends. How I did this
seemingly impossible and wholly gratuitous work
may seem strange, but it is not new, as some
reporters have used the self-same method. I had
neither pencil nor paper ; did everything with my
memory alone > my way being to catch the salient
points or heads, making them firm as the lecture
proceeded^ by the illustrations used, or by any
peculiarity of speech or idea, or any singular phrase.
With these " heads " following on consecutively,
when I sat down to write my lecture out, I always
found it easy to fill in the details, hardly ever once
getting lost^ or not being able to keep on writing as
fast as I could.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A DEAR friend, who had much influence over mc,
some years after this, was the Rev. W. R. Percival,
who came to Carlisle to assist Dean Close in some
of the poorer districts of the town. He was a man
of much thought, and capable of much spiritual
elevation and enthusiasm ; of a very gentle loving
disposition and beautiful manners. These had the
effect of endearing him to all classes and conditions
of people.

I was first introduced to him at a large soiree of
working men, held in Shaddongate, by Mr. Wilks,
where they were both to speak. I was struck with
his catholic spirit and bearing, for he was pre-
eminently a christian minister and a religious man,
having scarcely anything of the politician about
him, yet that night he spoke on christian co-
operation. Mr. Wilks and he — although as far as
the poles asunder — had something in ooaunon,

232 MARY SMITH.

being both christian men, and greatly desirous of
uplifting the masses.

Mr. Percival had been some months in Carlisle
before I had an opportunity of seeing or hearing
him, or indeed before he was known at all out of
church circles. Then a report of Dean Close
having used him harshly flew over the old city, and
all but the narrowest sectarians sympathized with
him and his young family. He had occupied the
position of one of the teachers at the Cheltenham
Training College for Teachers, and had been for
some time seeking holy orders in the Church of
England.

Dean Close had met with him, and had been
struck with the grasp of his mind, and his gentle
manly bearing. Knowing his wishes, he offered
him a curacy under him at Carlisle. The two got
on well for some time, but then it was said that the
people ran after the dean's curate more than they
did after the dean.

Mr. Percival's faults all came to the surface. He
was charged, as many good men have been, with
heterodoxy. This he was from certain standpoints,
but had at first stated he was a follower of Frederick

CARLISLE. 2$$

Denison Maurice, who was in the Church, as were
thousands of others holding the same belief. How-
ever, poor Percival was summoned to Rose-castle,
to be questioned by Bishop Waldegrave, an extreme
low churchman, which course ended in his being
asked to resign the post he held.

He was urged to form a church on Congregational
principles, in the hall of the Mechanics' Institute,
which he did, and preached there for a number of
years his own peculiar doctrines, which were those
of the Broad Church school. He used to say that
he had all the best heads in Carlisle, and truly at
one time I think he had. The first Sunday he
preached in the Mechanics' Hall, I went to report
his sermons, as promised. As I was not rich to
contribute to the funds, I was very glad to help in
this way, using my memory solely, without any help
of pencil at all.

Lonsdale, whom I helped occasionally with his
newspaper, favoured me in return by the insertion
of anything I sent. I sent very full accounts of the
opening services, when Mr. Percival began, which
probably helped a little to fill the place. It was a
wonder to many how his sermons got so often in

134 MARir SIOTH.

the papers, as no reporter was ever seen there.
The secret was only known to myself and a £ew
others.

I had in Mr. Percival and his wife very congenial
friends as long as they were in Carlisle. I attended
his church regularly, and even became a member.
He had had a great disappointment, and was still
anxious to get into the Church of England, in which
he certainly seemed to have a good prospect of
rising. But there are narrow orthodox spirits
everywhere, and perhaps more so in cathedral
towns. This class counted his good as evil, and in
some cases bore false witness against him. He
was a deeply injured man, and his fine capacities
were, to a certain extent, crushed out. Such^things
were the means of depressing and almost driving
him to madness. During the last year or two he
was in Carlisle, I was often fearful of some tragic
occurrence, which, thank God, never occurred.

At length, persuaded to think of his own and his
family's good, he left for London, where he preached
to crowded congregations in Newman Hall's chapel
and other places. Finally, he got ordination in the
church of his choice, and became one of the co-

CAftLtStJL ^35

workers with the Rev. J. Lambert in London,
where, after some years of hard parochial labomr,
he laid down his life, as many another true and
faithful servant of Christ has done.

In telling the story of this good man, I must not
omit to state that he met with one generous friend
in Carlisle, in the person of Mr. John Clark
Ferguson, who attended, his ministry. Besides
subscribing liberally to the church in Carlisle, after
they got to London he allowed them a hundred
pounds a year. I believe this sum was also con-
tinued to Mrs. Percival, when she became a widow,
an act of true Christianity worthy of the generous
family from whom it originated. There were many
others, of more limited means than Mr. Ferguson,
who stood firmly by Mr. Percival in his many trials.

When will the world learn that the heterodoxy
of one age is the orthodoxy of the next ? Christ
did not come into the world to condemn it. Are
we greater than He ?

Here is an anecdote of Mr. Percival, told me by
a gentleman at whose house he had been taking
tea, and who was walking along English-street with
him on his way home. It was between nine and

236 MARY SMITH.

ten o'clock, and the streets happened to be crowded
with people. At one place they were much jostled,
and Mr. Percival was awkwardly pushed against a
street girl. He expressed great sorrow, and pro-
posed to go back and beg her pardon. His friend
remonstrated, as it had been done accidentally. But
back he went, and with hat in hand begged her
pardon. The poor girl could not understand the
drift of it at first, but seeing his serious looks, burst
into tears, and exclaimed ; " O Lord, don't beg my
pardon ! "

This simple act roused her more than anything
else could have done, perhaps, to a sense of her
own true humanity from which she had fallen.
When Mr. Percival returned to his friend, with
a satisfied look, he resumed the thread of the
conversation as if nothing had happened.

I perhaps may say here that now in age and pain,
and in the daily expectation of deliverance from
this body of sin and death, I remain very much in
my spiritual beliefs as many years ago when I
joined Mr. PercivaFs church, save that I was then,
and have all my life been, more of a Nonconformist
than he was. My great devotion to Emerson made,

CARLISLE. 237

for many years, a deep impression on some of my
religious ideas. But in the presence of the great
realities of death, and in the sight of God, the
soul, in prayer and self-examination, sees things
more humbly and rightly; sees, indeed, the sur-
passing need we have of Christ, as our spiritual
guide, light, life, and way; sees how He is our
Saviour.

I have all my life disliked controversy, as did my
father. Still he used to say, "If it is calculated to
do good, let it go on." I have said, and still say
the same. This view of it is based on the sermon
on the mount, and accords with the deepest
humility which Christ taught. Truly, we ought to
be more like Him in all things. What we believe
is not of so much importance as what we are.

I began to read in public soon after I went to
live in Finkle-street. I had a large school; worked
very hard in the day, and often had private pupils
in the evening ; so fearful was I that I should not
be able to pay the rent of my large house. I had
also an additional boarder, a young lady of seven-
teen, a ward in chancery. I took great pains to

23S MARY SMITH.

make my pupils read naturally and effectually ;-
rarer gift than music, as I often told them.

My first reading in public was by no means my
own choosing. A young dissenting minister had
made an engagement with the committee connected
with Shaddongate school-room, to lecture for them
on a certain Saturday night. Something prevented
him from keeping his promise; and not knowing
what to do, they came and asked me if I could
help them out of their difficulty. When I arrived
on the scene, every inch of space in that large
room was crowded out, some were standing outside,
and I had a difficulty to get in. Mrs. Fisher was
in the chair, and introduced me.

As I had received such short notice, I read what
I felt sure I could read the best. I only know
now that I read Macaulay's "Armada," one of
Owen Meredith's poems, and Tennyson's "May
Queen." Every one was well received; and the
"May Queen" had a most appreciative and
delightful reception. I believe it had never been
read publicly in Carlisle before. I could hardly
get on for applause. Mr. Per9ival was there, and

CARLISLE. 239

afterwards urged me to give readings in connection
with his church.

But it was not till the following autumn that I
began the "Penny Readings" in Carlisle. The
following is their simple history. I went into
Oxfordshire at midsummer, as I had usually done
for a number of years. I met the local Baptist
minister, the Rev. W. Henderson, now of London,
at my brother's. He was an intellectual man, and
among other things, he told me of the success that
had attended some readings. Many who would
not go near the chapel on Sunday, came to the
readings on the week nights. The place was
crowded with coal-heavers, washerwomen, and all
sorts of people, a penny entrance being charged to
help to defray expenses.

I saw that such readings as these might do good
in Carlisle. Accordingly when I got settled at
home in the autumn, I began to cast about how I
could best bring my idea into practical effect. I
talked to my friends about it, and among others to
Mr. Percival. He warmly approved of the idea,
and told me that William Holstead, who was an
excellent reader, and others, had been holding

240 MARY SMITH.

readings in connection with his church while I was
in Oxfordshire.

One Sunday morning in October, after attending
Mr. PercivaFs service, Mr. Holstead walked down
Lowther-street with me to the foot of Rickergate.
I had spoken to him before about the readings,
and now again took the opportunity to say em-
phatically that if they were managed with decent
tact and economy they would certainly succeed.
Nothing would convince him, although he was
willing to help in any way he could. My ideas
seemed to be too large for him, and he did little
more than pull his moustache and express his
doubts.

At last, he agreed to my proposal that we should
try it for three weeks, the readings to take place
on the Monday or Saturday nights. Our first
meeting was on a Saturday night, and Dr. Elliot
was in the chair. It was not a success, but success
could not come at once. We then changed to
Monday night. The second meeting was better;
and on the third night the room was crowded to
the door, with numbers standing outside.

All through the first winter there wgs no falling

CARLISLE. 241

off in the attendance; and on some occasions of

particular interest, the penny tickets were re-sold

at six and even nine times their original cost. Mr.

Holstead and Mr. Robert Lattimer were the most

popular readers, but there were others — such as the

Rev. J. Tasker and Mr. Gosling of the County

hotel — who were very much appreciated. When

the days began to lengthen, we gave them up for

that season.

Thus the first winter's meetings closed with

eminent success, and with the commendation of

the whole community. Mr. Holstead had worked

indefatigably, having had the management of the

business part of the matter in his own hands — no

small affair. After all expenses had been paid,

there was a surplus of twenty-seven pounds left.

Five pounds of this was sent to the Dispensary, and

the remaining twenty odd pounds was expended

upon free beds for the House of Recovery. This

was a great consolation. We felt that our efforts

and anxieties had not been in vain. This season's

readings were the first and last that I had to do

with, as I had the misfortune to fall ill of a fever

the next September, which left me weak and feeble

for twelve months after.
L 16

CHAPTER XIX.

Poetry indeed was through all the hard periods of
my life, my joy and strength, the uplifter of my
soul in trouble. Now it was that every prospect of
a literary career — always the cherished ideal of my
soul — seemed forever blocked out of my prospects
and hopes. I, who would cheerfully have gone
ragged and barefoot to have had the meanest place
in the temple of lofty learning, was now, by my very
success as a teacher, and with my own hand, bolting
the door of my own higher hopes on my soul.

Never were these things spoken of to others.
Had I done so, I knew the kindest friend would
have thought me somewhat demented. Indeed, so
strong my feelings grew about this time on this
subject, that the prosperity of my school rather
depressed than gladdened me. Urged on by these
feelings, in spite of my natural timidity, after much
thought, I conceived the bold idea of writing to
Mrs. Carlyle of Chelsea, telling her the state of my
mind and asking her advice.

CARLISLE. 243

I hardly expected an answer, when, lo ! in a few
mornings the postman brought me a small envelope,
with a narrow edging of black, containing a letter
from Mrs. Carlyle.* When I saw who it was from,
I was too overpowered for some time to read it,
but when I did so I at once fell in love with this
dear woman, who ever after was one of the greatest
idols of my heart. Her letters to me advised
patience, and, in one of them, she praised a little
poem I had sent, entitled "The Present." In her
own phraseology, "Thomas, to whom she had read
it — who rarely praised poetry — had said, *The
young woman has something in her.' " This was
strength to me coming from such a source. Her
own opinion of my few lines was, that they had
more thought in them than many volumes of popular
drawing room verse. Still she advised me to write
prose in preference. Though I showed her letters
to no one, the thought that I had such a noble,
sympathizing friend, cheered my heart through
many a dark hour.

From the year 1854 till her death, I had
occasional kind letters from Mrs. Carlyle; in one

* See Appendix.

244 MARY SMITH.

case, a very long one of four sheets, telling me for
my encouragement of the hard-fisted life at Craig-
enputtock which she and her husband had to fight.
A noble woman she was. When passing through
Carlisle — perhaps, always when she stopped — she
sent me word beforehand to meet her at the County
Hotel.

Mrs. Carlyle was altogether an original little
woman ; natural and friendly to a degree, yet free
from all littleness; free also from all provincial
restraint of fashion or rank. She was very simply
dressed in grey alpaca, most plainly made ; not a
frill, nor flounce, nor band anywhere about it;
with a simple velvet skull cap, like a net over her
brown hair ; no brooch, or bracelet, or locket ; but
some very beautiful rings on one or two of her
fingers. And her speech and manners were as
simple as her person. No self-exhibition, which
spoils almost all ladies; no prettiness, but grave,
calm, natural truth and life.

In the presence of Mrs. Carlyle you felt that dress
counted for nothing; the impression you made
morally, spiritually, and intellectually being every-
thing. Like a wise woman, she divined your tastes,

CARLISLE. 24$

and talked about what you wanted to hear, namely,
the great Thomas and herself, but mostly of him.
Of one thing she always made me feel certain, that
I had made a good impression on her, and that she
had neither pride nor distrust. She did not merely
speak to you, but made you feel that she would like
you to be entirely free and friendly with her. I
found those whom I saw of this family singularly
sincere. They talked to you as though they had
known you all their lives.

Dr. John Carlyle came down to Finkle-street
once to fetch me to see Mrs. Carlyle. It was July,
and he was dressed in loose light clothing, very old
fashioned in make, and a white hat. When I got
to the County Hotel, I found him walking up and
down in front, fearing, as he said, lest I should go
to the wrong place. The second time I saw Mrs.
Carlyle — when we were better acquainted — she
kindly rose on my entering the room, and taking
my hand, said with a definite Scotch accent : "Now
come your ways, and sit ye down here by me (on the
couch), and tell me how ye have been getting on."

The last time I saw her, after the first salutation
— still holding my hand, and leading me to the
couch on which she sat — she said kindly ; "Come

^4^ MarV siiit^.

and sit ye down by me, and tell me all about
yourself; what yeVe been doing, and how ye*re
getting on." So she sat me down close beside her,
and told me many things about herself and her
home, and Thomas, as she invariably called him.
Before leaving, she said : "I suppose you come to
London sometimes. Everybody comes. Now,
whenever ye do, be sure to come to Chelsea to see
us."

Indeed, as Thomas Carlyle said in the last letter
he wrote to me, when acknowledging a copy of the
book I had dedicated to him: they had always
regarded me as "one connected with their own
household."

During her brief visits to the old border city of
Carlisle, Mrs. Carlyle was very particular to keep
herself from becoming known. On one occasion,
she told me that Dr. Lonsdale* had pressed her very
much to go to Rose hill, and see the garden ; but
she said they could not go (another lady being with
her). The next time I met her, however, she was
particularly careful to tell me the doctor had a con-

* Dr. Lonsdale, author of the *' Worthies of Cumberland."

—Ed.

CARLISLE. 247

veyance waiting for them, and finding they had
time to get back for the train, they went. In this,
as in other matters, I saw she was anxious to leave
a truthful impression of this small matter on my
mind. She impressed me with her sincerity and
kindly interest, telling me numberless simple inci-
dents of her girlhood, among the rest that she once
had an offer of marriage on the race course at
Carlisle ; all, as it seemed to me, to make me feel
at home with her, and be free to speak without
reserve in her presence.

No help, in the way I desired, came from my
acquaintanceship with Mrs. Carlyle, and yet it was
a help. I felt that I had been recognized as a
fellow sufferer with higher and nobler souls than
myself, and I felt encouraged and strengthened to
hope and hold on my way. It is the fate of youth
to see all things in roseate hues, and to believe
most lives but their own happy. This was my
tendency. Patience is our own strength. I had to
learn the wisdom of waiting, which I gradually did.
Our disappointments are the enduring metal of life,
and harden us to still greater strength.

CHAPTER XX.

In all my sorrows, Work was my best helper ; in
school and in my house. I was never quite free
from the old religious idea, that troubles were a
chastisement for moral delinquencies in heart or
life, sent to rouse and quicken forgetful men and
women, who had become indifferent, and had failed
to keep faithfully to the narrow path of religion.
This idea, ever real and living within me, always
prompted more moral carefulness ; cutting off right
hands, and plucking out right eyes, sometimes, as
the case might be. The stern light of former vows
were revived within me, and I could often say of
a truth, " It is good for me to be afflicted."

So my sorrows were my strength. They opened
my eyes to the realities of life, and helped me to
shake myself free from the world's pretensions and;
its mean complacencies. Because others did so,>
why should I sell my soul for a mess of pottage ?
So apart from churches and creeds, I learned the

CARLISLE. 24$

divine strength of the soul, finding that its condem-
nation shamed me into higher thought and deed,
than any I could have got at church or chapel. In
fact, though I never did anything very grand, I
caught glimpses occasionally of that real life — the
light of the world — which stamps as paltry and
insignificant all its grandeurs, and elevates the
thoughts of man to that of the immortals.

The winter following the autumn, in which I had
the fever, was a very sad one to me. I opened my
school again, but people knew how very weak I
was, and so waited till I grew stronger before
sending their children. My girl, whom I had had
for five years, had given me notice to leave, before
my illness, and her time was up just as I returned
home, still very weak and unable to do anything
for myself. This tried me much. Mrs. Palmer,
seeing how weak I was, insisted that I should stay
with them for a week or so. I did so, but was very
anxious to go to my own home.

One evening, when no one was with me, I was
very unwell, and in great distress. Behold ! the
door bell rang at that critical moment, and a young
person, the daughter of an old friend, had come to

^$o maryJsmith.

see me and inquire how I was. After telling her
all about myself, I said, "And now my great want
is a nice girl to assist me. Do you know of one ?*
She sat a minute and then said, "Will you have
me?" I replied, I should be delighted, but could
not think of her giving up her business on my
behalf.

Her father had left her two hundred pounds,
and her mother being dead, she had established
herself as a dressmaker. She still persisted, how-
ever, in coming, though I told her I could only
give her eight pounds, the same as I had given the
other girl. At last I said to her, "Well, go home
and think over it for three days, and then come
and tell me how you decide." This I insisted on ;
but she was back the next night, still in the same
mind, very anxious to come.

So by God's special blessing and help, my trouble
was ended — a very great one to me — ^and my need
supplied. She stayed with me for twelve months,
and proved herself more than I had expected. In
that sad winter, when the doctors forbade me to
read even, she made my long evenings cheery in my
sorrow, by reading to me Maurice's Sermons, lent

CARLtSLE. 2$i

me by Dr. Lockie, and "Enoch Arden," by William
Holstead.

The April after that, I think it was (for I am
writing in great weakness), the Shakespeare Tercente-
nary was held. Carlisle, like other provincial towns,
was in a puzzle what to do, or how to celebrate it.
As a warm admirer of Shakespeare, I was anxious
that something should be done. Sooner than that
nothing should be done, I said to a gentleman, I
would write an essay on the great Poet, a popular
one on his character and the moral tendency of his
works, in order to show to religious people generally
the elevating and inspiring nature of his works.

From this, things soon flew into shape for a
meeting, at which I was to give my essay. Through
many hindrances, I got it worked out, but did not
get it finished till the last day. The meeting, which
was in the Athenaeum, was a very large one. Mr.
Robert Ferguson, M.P., was in the chair, and many
of the clergy of the church and dissent were on the
platform. My essay was well received, principally,
I have no doubt, because I had made my remarks
plain to the common understanding of the audience,
and likewise I had made it my aim to interest them.

2^2 MARV SMITH.

in Shakespeare, rather than to criticise him ; and
also to counteract the prevalent opinion in the
religious world, that the study of his works was
antagonistic to religion.

All my literary efforts were the results of some
odd leisure moments. In this way I produced a
small work, entitled " Old Castles." It was begun

without much thought, as an account of a summer
trip of Mr. Percival's Sunday school scholars, whom
I accompanied to Corby Castle — this being the
least careful of the lot ; in fact, a mere newspaper
sketch. I had often written cursory sketches of
places I had visited, and they had been printed in
various papers, such as the Carlisle Observer.

One fine Saturday afternoon in spring, Mrs.
Fisher and I, and a little boy boarder, set off for
Linstock Castle, only thinking of having a good
walk and the benefit of breathing the fresh air.
But the old castle, with its yard-wide walls, where
kings and soldiers, and the famous Bishop Hilton,
and monks, had alternately prayed and fought, with
all the busy scenes of the dim past, inspired my
imagination, and followed me — as things did then

CARLISLE. 253

— till I took the pen and put them on paper. So
I wrote " Linstock Castle," a sketch.

I had no especial object in. writing, and it laid
aside for some time, till one day I saw an adver-
tisement of the Border Magazine^ to be published .
shortly in Edinburgh, and inviting contributions.
I saw it would be the very place for my "Linstock
Castle," though I knew it was very deficient as a
history. It had been written merely as a rambling
sketch of one of the many castles of Cumberland
unknown to fame.

With hardly any improvement, I sent it to the
editor, thinking it might be useful to him as material
for his venture. In reply, he professed to be greatly
obliged by my sending it, saying that it was written
in popular readable style, which was very rare in
such papers, "dry as dust" being the prevailing
order. He pressed me to furnish him with further
contributions, saying he hoped finally to be able to ^
pay his contributors.

I replied that I was not able to leave my school
to visit castles, but as I had never seen any popular
sketch of Carlisle Castle, I would, if he liked, give
a sketch of it. Accordingly, as was my wont, I

354 MARY SMITH.

began to do something in the way of jotting down
ideas. I made it a complete study, seeking in every
history I could get hold of for information on
different points. The castle at that time being
quite vacant of troops, I went in as often as I liked,
often surprising the man in charge with facts of
which he had no previous knowledge.

I got to like it much as I went on, and might
have made much more of it if I had had time.
Still I did not hurry, as the editor told me he would
not have room for it till the following month. When
completed, I let competent friends peruse and
judge, a clergyman being among the number. All
expressed themselves well pleased with it, one
especially warned me strongly against trying to
improve it, lest I should mar instead of mend. But
after all the trouble I had taken with Carlisle Castle,
it was destined not to appear in the Border
Magazine,

The editor wrote that he was coming to Carlisle,
and would call upon me, but this was not in my
reckoning. Accordingly I wrote him a line, saying
that I was a very busy woman, and would have no
time to see him except on a Saturday, and scarcely

CARLISLE. 855

then. But my fears of being troubled with the
company of the editor were needless, for a report
was soon in the wind that that gentleman had made
a moonlight flitting ; and with its second number
the Border Magazine dropped into nonentity.*

I was too busy to think of literary matters, and
it laid by for some time, till a young fellow, a
Scotch student, came to Carlisle as editor of the
Express, A friend introduced him to me as one
who carried a copy of Bacon in his pocket. He
stayed in Carlisle only a short time, but in that
time he asked me to lend him the manuscript of
" Carlisle Castle" to read privately. Without asking
my leave, he printed part of it in the Express^ and
apologized for doing so by saying it would be
largely read and appreciated. In this way was I
obliged to consent that the remainder of it might
appear. All my friends said, it was worthy of a far
better place than the columns of a local newspaper.

A few months after, Lonsdale sent to say that
some London publishers had written for leave to

* This is a mistake. The Border Magazine commenced in
July, 1863, and was continued monthly until December of
the same year. The article on "Linstock Castle" appeared
in the November part — Ed,

256 MARY SMITH.

print it, and enquired what my will was respecting
it. But I was offered nothing, so I declined. This
induced me to see a local publisher, an intimate
friend of mine, with a view of having my articles
on "Old Castles" issued in a separate form. Lin-
stock and Corby were mere sketches, and the poem
on Carlisle was written as an after thought.

These were published in 1868, and made little
impression in a collected form. Having been a
good deal read before, they scarcely paid the
expenses. And now after many years have passed,
I have no regrets about this little book. Its com-
position as a literary labour — which was always a
great joy to me — helped to inspire me with hope
and courage in the lonely path of my woman's life,
and to give a shade of additional dignity (always
dear to me, as it should be to all women) to my
character.

Before this period, I began to take an interest in
the circumstances and conditions of woman's life.
From the time I helped Mr. Wingrave with unedu-
cated women and girls at the Damside, and the
Messrs. Carr later, in their excellent schools for
young women in Caldewgate — the helplessness of

CARLISLE. 257

women in the great battle of life was enforced upon

me, especially in large towns, where they are left so

much to their own immature guidance, with often

neither good habits nor influences nor education to

help them. Consequently my attention was drawn

to the Woman's Suffrage Society, formed by Miss

Lydia Becker, and other ladies and gentlemen at

Manchester. At once I saw that the inequality of

the sexes in privilege and power, was a great cause

of the dreadful hardships which women, especially

in the lower classes, had to suffer.

The Quaker women, from George Fox's time,

have been considered the equal and the peer of

men, in all the councils of the church, in all the

decisions of their meetings, and as missionaries and

ministers, as well as in the home. In many ways,

they have better ordered and more rational minds,

better judgments, and more self control than others.

They are not inflated with pride, but dignified with

the native reason and the privilege of the use of

equal gifts and capacities with men. I have come

to the belief that in depriving women of their

Rights, we have degraded them, and that England

for that degradation suffers the curse of moral
L 17

f$i MARY SMITH.

deterioration in her whole race. Great men, it is
ahnost universally admitted, have always noble
mothers.

We had an important meeting at Carlisle, at
which Miss Becker was the principal speaker ; and
we afterwards formed a society, but our labours
were not very successful in that direction. The
practical northern mind will not make any pretence
of believing what it does not believe, and has often
little time for thought. I became warmly interested
in all that concerns the interests of women. I
worked and wrote whenever I could in favour of
the Married Woman's Property Bill, and against
that disgrace to humanity, the "C. D. Acts," which,
thanks to the exertions of women, and Mr. Stans-
field, are not what they were. I lectured on this
subject to women to full audiences, and helped
Mrs. Hudson Scott, who worked heartily in the
cause, to get up petitions to Parliament against
them. I feel great satisfaction, in looking back,
that in the midst of a busy life, wherein my own
head and hands • had to supply every need, I tried
to take a humble part in this cause, and still try to
help with the helpers of women.

CARUSLS. 259

A life like mine had many disappointments;
many a human reed on which I leaned broke, and
I had many losses buried in my own bosom ; for
sorrow does but grow by talking about it. It was
to my own heart I wrote most often, and out of my
own heart I learnt in sorrow what I taught in song.
My way was to open the sluice of some stirring
rhyme, and let it flow off in song, which was like
wine to my sotil ; and the test of its worth to me
always was that the word, if inspired, gladdened me
first ; then I knew that it was likely to inspire and
gladden others.

In this way I wrote "What to do," "Do thy
Work," "Stand and Strive," and many others.
These were all sent to the Carlisle newspapers —
the youmal in the last years — and printed with
my initials "M.S.," which I also used for letters
and other papers. In writing on politics, which I
often did, I used some other initial, "Z" very often,
or other signature. I considered that if men knew
who the writer was, they would say, " What does a
woman know about politics ?"

But the working men of Carlisle, I must say,
made an exception in my favour, and more than

36o MARY SMITH.

once sought the help of my pen at election times.
Through one election, a paper was published called
"The Liberal Club," in which I did most of the
writing. Under the assumed character of Mrs.
Susan Trueman, the wife of John Trueman, the
mother of a large family, I — as a woman who could
hold the pen a bit — rattled away on behalf of my
class against the Tories and taxation, when the
younger children were asleep, and the eldest boy
read the papers to me while rocking the cradle.

Also, as "Burns Redivivus," I parodied or
adapted a lot of popular Scotch ballads, such as
" There's nae luck aboot the house," " Scots wha
hae," and "Auld lang syne." I likewise scribbled
a lot of original doggerel which flew glibly on the
popular tongue, and helped to turn the laugh on
the Tories, if it did not bring conviction to them. I
believe that was the election which Mr. W. Nichol-
son Hodgson lost, and Mr. Potter and Sir Wilfrid
Lawson won. Dean Close, who had formerly
voted "Blue," now joined the Tories, and I, under
cover of some outre name, lectured him seriously
about it.

Here's the tag end of one of the doggerel verses

CARLISLE. 261

which figured in the well read pages of the paper
devoted to popular warfare, which if it did nothing
else helped to keep up the fun.

So give the Dean a surplice clean,

And W. N. his stick ;
He'll have to walk, and soon, I ween.

So let him have it quick.

I also wrote on many other ^topics; the practical
well-being of the middle and working classes being
my aim. Various were the themes I took up
besides politics. Drink, especially, I wrote much
against, seeing much in my walks of the poverty it
inflicted, in the blue-white faces and rags of the
many poor little shivering children I met. Many
and many a time had I to pull my veil down, and
speed on with bowed head, to hide a face streaming
with sorrow for those poor little innocents, which
often led me to write strongly in their behalf, when
I got home.

I wrote earnestly in behalf of coffee shops, helping
to demolish the many fallacies brought against them,
nor ceased until they were fairly well established in
the city. A great convenience these places have
been everywhere, and I have no doubt a means of

fit MARV SMltU.

much good; for there the country boy and girl, and
the tired man and woman, can refresh themselves
for a penny, nor fear acquiring habits of evil or
intemperance. I could not take part on committees,
nor help in the practical work of furthering the
scheme. The one thing I could do I did, and that
was to try to inspire others with the importance and
useful nature of the work.

It would indeed demand more time than I have
at command, to describe half of what I wrote about
"Woman's Suffrage," "Marriage with a Deceased
Wife's Sister," and the "Employment of Women."
But I was always pleased that I had essayed to
write two or three letters, which had been the
means of helping two worthy families, and one
very worthy woman.

The first in point of time was the case of old Mr.
Morrison of Cummersdale. I had known him for
some years, through having his daughter, a pupil
teacher^ lodging at my house. Though a learned
man in mathematics, the classics, and some of the
modem languages, he had been obliged to give up
a good school, and undertake the humbler duties
of a village on^ through being ahnost drawn double

CARLISLE. 263

by rheumatism. About ten o'clock one dark
wintry night — after teaching a French class at the
Mechanics' Institute, in Fisher-street — in plodding
his way homeward, with his head bowed down, as
was his wont, on coming to the side of the river
Caldew, it is supposed, he missed his foothold, fell
in, and was drowned.

He was a man I had admired, as despite of all
difficulties, he was always engaged with private or
public tuition, keeping his family respectable, and
placing them out in the world at his own expense.
Such men as these, I always thought most worthy of
honour. And seeing his family so suddenly deprived
of every means of support, I at once wrote to the
Juurnal a strong letter, urging his family's claims,
in their forlorn condition, to some subscription in
their behalf.

My letter had been well timed. Money came in
apace. The subscription list mounted up and grew
to sixty-five or seventy pounds, which must have
been a great help to the poor widow and her family.
I was exceedingly pleased, but never named myself
in conjunction with it ; my joy being that the thing
should prosper, and the family should derive benefit
from it.

264 MARY SMITH.

Another of these cases occurred, I think, a year
or two after. It was that of Mr. Thomas Hardy of
Caldewgate. He worked at Dixon's factory, and
had done so from his youth. The first time I saw
him was at Mr. Osborn's night school, when Mr.
Osborn taught grammar, logic, etc., to working men.
Afterwards he became a very earnest and enthusiastic
politician, lecturing and speaking continually for the
Liberal party, to which he was a considerable help.

For several years he was one of the leading men
among his own party — a man who had largely
cultivated his own mind, and was especially well
read in history and politics. He was also a careful,
steady, religious man, and had a nice cottage house
of his own. Consumptive for long before he died,
he left his wife and large family entirely without
provision, save this house, which he was most
anxious should not be sold, but remain for the use
of the family. At his death, I thought that the
family of a man who had so largely devoted his
time and talents to the success of the Liberal cause
in Carlisle, and who had always conducted himself
in an exemplary way, ought to have something
done for them.

CARLISLE. 265

Accordingly I took the first opportunity to send
to the newspaper a sketch of his life, appealing to
a generous public to do something out of respect
to his memory, for the education of his younger
children and the assistance of his household. This
was very kindly responded to, and the subscriptions
mounted to a considerable sum. Mr. Potter and
Sir Wilfrid Lawson, the members for Carlisle, sent
twenty pounds each, which with other sums raised
it to over eighty pounds. This proved a great help
to Mrs. Hardy in her time of need; she was a
woman in every respect worthy of her exemplary
husband. Their little home was a model of
domestic neatness, and its books, maps, and pic-
tures, proved it to be one of intelligence and peace.

The next case, which occurred a year or more
after, but unlike it in kind, was that of my friend
Mrs. Fisher, well known and kindly remembered
by the people of Carlisle. From an early period I
had been acquainted with Mrs. Fisher, having been
introduced to her by another literary friend, Mr.
James Walker. As her house was not far from
mine, I often ran to see her for a bit of congenial
talk ; but I soon found that she, like most women

266 MAR? SMITH.

of mind, lived a life of trouble. She had a husband,
it is true, but he thought more of the money value
of her gifts than of anything else, and would call
her up early on a winter morning to finish a tale for
the few pounds to be got by it.

A small talker and an opium eater, he was the
glibbest and most courteous while indulging in public
houses. Often have I met the poor wife speechless
and tearful, on a Saturday night, posting oflf to get
him something for his supper. He was a carpenter
by trade, working on his own account, and had an
apprentice, a poor sickly fellow, who had no home
but with them.

They had no children, and had it not been for
the wife's exertions, their comforts would have been
few and far between. When I first knew her, she
had a wide repute as a writer of local poetry, and
had published a volume or two. These she took
about with her to sell, and generally met with
success. She had then begun to write tales, for
which she found a ready market, either in the local
papers, or in several instances in CasselPs publi-
cations, though she only got about five pounds
each for them. For one whose educati<Hi was

CA&USLS. 267

limited, she had a mind of no ordinary capacity,
being shrewd, well read, and intelligent. As it
was, she stood alone among the women of Carlisle
in the dexterous use of her pen. By her husband's
death, she was left with greater freedom to do as
she liked.

Before this, however, she had set up as a public
letter writter, and afterwards she opened a school
for working men's children. With these she fought
on very comfortably till her health failed, and then
every one saw she had not strength for her labour.
At last she was obliged to give up, but was without
any certain means of support. Previous to this,
however, Mr. Hardy had got up a subscription,
which had helped her considerably. But now with
failing health, and her means all gone, though she
said nothing, it was evident she was very sad.

Calling one night to see how she was, her sadness
and changed appearance moved me deeply, and as
I went home I resolved to write something there and
then on her behalf. I wrote a short but very
stirring appeal in favour of a fund being raised,
which should be continued to her weekly, so that
she might feel sure of a small sufficiency. I

268 MARY SMITH.

suggested my friend, Miss Palmer, as one who, I
felt sure, would be willing to receive any money
entrusted to her, and would see it dispensed
regularly for Mrs. Fisher's comfort.

The next morning — thanks to the editor of the
Journal — my joy was great. I saw my letter in the
paper ; and before the close of the same day, I had
the satisfaction of knowing that its mission had
been happily fulfilled, and that many kind and
generous citizens had responded to my appeal. It
is not now in my power to name any, with the
exception of Robert Ferguson, Esq., M.P., who
headed the subscription list with half-a-crown per
week from that time forward.

Dear always to me in after life, was the recollection
of the prompt action of my letter, and its effect
upon the good people of the Border city; especially
when I went to Mrs. Fisher's home and saw her
kept clean and comfortable, and free from her old
cares and worry. Women with a tendency to
learning or literature in the lower ranks, in times
past, had to work hard for very little recompense.
Mrs. Fisher had a troubled life, but like a prudent
and proud woman, as she was, she kept these things

CARLISLE. 269

to herself. Poverty was the goad that led her to
write tales, read publicly, and do many other of the
best things she did.

I may say that among my many enterprises to
do a little good in a lowly way, to my own sex, I
soon after this time gave six lectures to women, on
Sunday evenings, in the Temperance Hall, Caldew-
gate. My object was to gain over some of the
many slovenly women, who stand hour after hour
at their door posts, satisfying their inane spirits, by
watching the ever varying incidents of the streets.
I spent only half-a-crown on a few handbills to
make it known, and this was all it cost me, inde-
pendent of the intellectual exertion I bestowed
on it.

As to the lectures themselves, I aimed to speak
in a plain, practical, and colloquial manner on
practical matters, not exclusively religious — or such
as are so called — on the training of children both
physical and moral; on the duty and advantages of
thrift, cleanliness, good manners, purity of spirit,
cheerfulness, and goodwill; together with many
other things conducive to the peace and prosperity
of families, not often touched on in sermons, nor

370 MARY SMITH.

thought, by many, altogether fit subjects for
Sundays, though, I think, they might be with
profit.

No great number came to hear me, but those
who did were poor women, though not all of the
class intended. One of the things I insisted on
was the worth of trifles, and the spirit in which
things are done. I cannot remember at this length
of time, the subjects of all my lectures. One only
has vividly remained with me, and, I think, I
enjoyed the delivery of it more than any other,
though they were all much alike. I called it
"Making and Mending;" and first of all I led my
small audience up to the great Maker and Mender,
and made them see, with David, the Heaven as the
work of His fingers, and how from everlasting to
everlasting they repeat His praise.

I always felt deeply when describing nature. In
asking them to think simply of the morning made
gloriously anew out of every dark night, it was an
easy task to lead them to listen. I endeavoured
also to depict how simple women could beautify
their small homes, and make them, as I had seen
sometimes, when some blind was undrawn, or some

CARLISLS. 971

door left ajar, snug and comfortable with pictures,
and genteel comforts that cost little.

So also I told them by attention they might viend
their little ones' manners, and lead them to practice
it as a diversion, while they were sewing, or even
washing. I told them that the good housewife is
as holily employed when she sits by her neat hearth
and makes "auld claithes look amaist as weel as
new," for her boys' and husband's comfort, as if she
were at the prayer meeting. I ended by saying, that
the very spirit of such a mother, filled with the idea
of her family's moral good, comfort, and happiness,
could not fail to elevate and bless them, and be the
means of bettering their fortunes in this world, and
leading them to thoughts and hopes of the blessed-
ness of the world beyond. This is a simple outline
of one of my little lectures to plain women.

But, oh ! what an outcry was raised against me
by the religious world! All parties agreed with
each other in denouncing my little effort to interest
and enlighten women. "To think," they said, "of
my beginning an address on a Sunday night without
singing and prayer ! Such a thing was awful and
unheard of." My girl, who was much attached to

2J2 MARY SMITH.

me, every time she went out came back with
such a sad face, saying mostly, "O Miss Smith,
what things folk do say about you. It's no use my
replying that it's very good what you say. They
won't believe me." But I troubled nothing. The
working men urged me to keep on, believing it
would do good. They offered me the hall, with
gas and fire, free. The women also urged me to
continue my addresses.

CHAPTER XXI.

In going along the Castle-bank for an evening
stroll, over the bridge towards Rickerby, quite
unlike other ladies, it may be, whose sole attention
was engrossed by dress and fashion, I saw nothing
but the sorrows and evils around me. Often and
often I was told by kind friends, that they had met
me, but that I had never seen them ; while others
came laughingly up to me, to recall me from my
thoughts by the reality of their presence.

At that time the Sauceries were held of the
Corporation by a well-to-do citizen, and nightly, all
through summer time, his man, "the shepherd,"
patrolled the field with an awful looking cudgel in
his hand, to the great alarm and terror of little
boys and girls, who fled with their little naked feet
helter-skelter before him; the smaller ones often
falling in their flight and sometimes hurting them-
selves badly, when much crying ensued.

The "bobby," too, was a terrible scare. His
J. W

274 MARY SMITH.

helmet was the signal for the same rush and
precipitate flight of old and young, the very little
ones crying bitterly in their ineffectual efforts to get
away, being often left by their bigger companions.

One night, having been detained at home, I was
flying with some speed over the grass down to the
side of the Caldew — one of my favourite walks in
hot weather, which I always thought should be laid
to that river for a park — when this veritable shep-
herd, with his staff, chanced to spy me. He
shouted and held it up ominously, but was, I fancy,
rather taken aback when he saw me alter my course,
and trip over the grass to meet him. He put down
his staff and stood still, however, and then I in my
turn catechised him, as to whether his master did
not take the ground — as I had been told by mem-
bers of the Corporation — subject to the condition
of its being run over by children and others.

This, and other encounters between the police
and small boys (who roar aloud for fear of being
taken up by the men in blue,) I sent to the papers,
shocked to see English children so persecuted for
indulging in their divinest instinct — the love of
nature — and gathering a few wild flowers. And

CARLISLE. 275

my letters were much read, my initials "M.S."
being well known. I wrote to convince, and often
had the conviction that they had weight in the
proper quarters, and not unfrequently produced the
desired effect. Thus the children were less perse-
cuted after this, and were not disturbed when
gathering flowers or chasing butterflies ; while the
elder boys wrestled in north country fashion, or
played their sturdier games, if not to their hearts'
content, certainly more freely and with more en-
joyment.

Indeed, I found much to write about in my
walks. I wrote pleading for seats behind the castle
and along the banks of the Eden, long before any
were put down, as an inducement for the aged
especially to get out into the open air. Very pleased
was I, when I saw workmen accomplishing one
more good thing mostly in behalf of the working
classes, and those two ends of humanity so often
forgotten — old men and little children.

I wrote also about the levelling of the Sauceries
long before it was done, seeing how much an
"observing eye" could find to beautify the outskirts
of the city, for the delight of its toiling thousands,

276 MARY SMITH.

and the joy of the passing stranger. Very much
was I surprised again to see this being commenced
with two or three years after, heedless of what I
had done, but glad of the idea becoming a reality.

As a last and most effective example of my
letter writing, and the results it produced, I give
this instance, which occurred nearly twenty years
ago, perhaps more. The Castle-bank lies close
under the castle, and at the back of Finkle-street,
where I lived and had my school for twenty-four
years. Leading down by the Eden from it, is a
beautiful walk known as the "Weavers'-bank," so
called from having been made by unemployed
weavers in times of depression. It is one of the
most beautiful, healthy, and most frequented walks
in the city, and has always been so.

But at the time when this occurred, just after
the French invasion scare, Carlisle castle was, and
had been for two years or more, quite full of
soldiers. Over these men no very strict discipline
seemed to have been exerted. In the evenings of
all days alike, they overflowed into Finkle-street,
and on the bank, stopping up the gates, where they
especially congregated. They made ript and us^d

CAtlLISLE. 277

profusely disreputable language, with disreputable
girls, big and little, who met them there every
evening for the purpose of this coarse obscene
mirth. The noise and sight were disgusting to
every passer by, but especially so to ladies and
mothers with girls by their sides.

One Sunday in early summer, a bright and beau-
tiful evening, I left my house for a long walk up
the Brampton-road. The gates leading to the
Castle-bank were crowded with a noisy, obstreperous,
coarse multitude, as was the path between them,
ladies and gentlemen being hardly able to pass. I
heard a gentleman behind me say to a lady, who
accompanied him, "What a place this is! And on
a Sunday night ! And no police !" No, never a
policeman to be seen, though they were always on
the track of the poor little children gathering a few
flowers in the fields.

With some difficulty I got through, and sped on
towards Stanwix-bank, where I met a lady with her
girls, whom I knew. We had not stood long, till
she said, "Oh! Miss Smith, what a place that
bank has become ! I used to go round there for a
walk in the evening, but I daren't do so now*

2^6 MARY SMITH.

Those soldiers and rough girls behave so shame^
fully, and use such disgusting language. I wish
you would write about it to the paper." I said I
was afraid, they were such a rough lot ; and any-
thing I could do I feared would be ineffectual.

So we parted, but I could not help thinking
about it. It followed me, as such things sometimes
did, and on the Monday evening I sat down to
write a letter to the youmal on the subject. I
neither took much time nor pains. My letters
were always the strong sense and feeling which the
first thoughts on the subject evolved. If the matter
flowed freely and kept my pen busy, I kept on ; if
not, I put it aside — which rarely happened — as a
thing not to spend time upon. That night my pen
flew fast. I was on a familiar theme — how standing
armies demoralize the community; one of their
worst evils, perhaps ; and my mind was full of the
subject.

Living in Finkle-street so long, close to the
castle, I had seen much of soldiers and had
endured much, both by night and day, from their
loud and lawless mirth and bickerings. So my
letter — not a very long one, but full of indignant

CARLISLE. 279

fire — was finished and sent up to the Journal the
same night. The only precaution I took, was that
I did not sign any name likely to lead to my identifi-
cation. The next morning I saw it in the paper,
but thought nothing more about it till the evening,
when I started for my usual walk between six and
seven.

When I got to the bank gates, which were quite
quiet, I saw a group of angry-looking, white-aproned,
bonnetless girls, standing in the distance, straining
their eyes towards the gate, evidently expecting
their usual compeers. I entered the gate and
walked on a short distance, when a big boy seeing
them, shouted out, "Hey! ye needn't wait. It's
been i' the papers, an' they're nut comin' to-neet."
The girls were confounded, but made off round
the castle, to see for themselves.

This made me feel somewhat nervous, for I saw
it was my doing. But on looking up, as I went
on, what was my alarm to see a double file of
soldiers marching towards me, with officers behind
them, and in the distance a policeman hurrying on.
What I felt at that moment, it would be vain to
attempt to describe* My limbs seemed powerless

2So MARV SMItH.

to support me, and I trembled so that I could not
get on. I thought all eyes were fixed on me,
policeman's and all, and that they would know me
to be the woman. I tried to look another way,
but thought this would betray me, and assumed a
face of indifference I could not well sustain.

So they passed me, but I trembled for long after;
and as soon as I reached home again, I hurried off
to Mrs. Fisher, and made her my confidante of the
whole thing, for I dare tell no one else. She was
frightened, too, at the part I had essayed. " Hinny,"
said she, "you must be careful, or they will break
your windows, and serve you out in a shameful
manner. Don't tell another creature." And then
she told me for my comfort her own escapades in
writing in political catches and squibs; and how
she had once to run up a lane to hide herself, and
remain a prisoner there for nearly an hour.

Next day and the next day after again, I heard
of the soldiers — lately so great a pest to the bank —
being under discipline everywhere; officers marching
behind them with naked swords, all over the aston-
ished city; and the bank and Finkle-street were
once more passable and quiet, Sundays and week

CARLISLE. 2S1

days. Now that the soldiers had been cleared off,
the girls no longer came. Previously their behaviour
had been enough to corrupt any little girl that went
by. Some officer wrote to the paper rebuking the
writer of the letter for making the thing so public.

I thought I was unknown, till a few days after,
walking on the bank, I met some lady friends, who
began to compliment me on the great good my
letter had done, saying how glad people were that
the thing had been taken in hand. For once, I
dare not own my handiwork ; so I said there were
other ladies who could write a good letter, and
they must not be too sure of its being mine. I had
to exercise caution, as I soon found I had a rough
element around me ready to take vengeance when-
ever an opportunity occurred.

One Saturday afternoon, I happened to be leaving
my door, when some factory lasses were passing.
They all stopped, turned back, and stared. One of
them pointed fiercely to me, and hissed out, "That's
hur ! I tell ye, that's hur !" Though I tried hard
to look haughty, and walked away, it made me
tremble sadly, as I did not know what might come
next. Thank heaven, I got nothing worse ! But

282 MARV SMITH.

I felt gratified (as I always did when my letters
effected any good) when I saw what a change was
wrought for the better by it, in all the neighbour-
hood.

From that time, the soldiers were never allowed
to congregate on the bank, nor in Finkle-street. It
was such a complete change that everybody took
notice of it, and talked about it. Going to the door,
two or three years after this event, to see the cause
of an unusual noise, I found my neighbour there
also, and in reply to my question, she said : "It's
them soldiers again. They'll git in the paper as
they did afore, if they don't mind." This pleased
me well, as I saw she knew nothing of its being
my doing, so I replied : "And quite right it should
be so."

But this stir caused by my letter occurred just
before midsummer, my usual time for spending a
month in Oxfordshire, at my native village of
Cropredy, famous for its "fight" between Waller
and King Charles I. of blessed memory ; and far
away among its rich grass and cornfields and sweet
blossomy roadsides — and here my terror of the
retaliation of the soldiers all disappearedi

CHAPTER XXII.

It was soon after this occurrence I published a
second volume of poetry, which I called "Progress
and other Poems." I had for a long time been
engaged in composing the longest piece — that is,
"Progress," having begun it in 1865. It was rather
a rash undertaking for one with so little time on
hand as I had. But like many a nobler and truer
poem, it was written as a solace for a great and
undivulged sorrow. This trouble was augmented
by the loss of a minister of religion, whose services
I had attended nearly all the time he was in
Carlisle. This was the Rev. W. R. Percival, a true
christian gentleman, and a man of advanced views,
with which views I truly sympathized, as did many
others in the old city.*

But when Mr. Percival and his family were gone,
I felt their loss very much, from our close intimacy;
and having a sad heart sorrow as well, I turned for

* See account of Mr. Percival, page 231.

2S4 MARV SMITH.

solace and support to poetry, contemplating some
larger and more ambitious effort solely as a cure
for my melancholy mind. Hence the origin of
"Progress," which in some measure came from my
reading Emerson, together with my study of history,
and also from my admiration of the poetry of
Ebenezer Elliot, the strong spirited corn-law rhymer.
Of Elliot's heart-stirring verse there is, I think,
some forgetfulness in England in our flippant times;
but whose strong rugged lyrics the Americans still
highly value and preserve.

Pondering this enterprise, one Sunday afternoon
as I walked to Brunstock bridge, in the fair harvest
time, I composed the first stanza of it, not doing
anything more for months. But the strength, effect,
and sweetness of Elliot's poetry, who was an
unlearned man, greatly encouraged me ; and in the
sad winter which followed, I made some way with
the first part of it, as I found it the best solace for
my trouble.

I told no one of my design. I expected nothing
but failure for a long time; distrust of my own
powers being one of the chief demons I had to
conquer. But poetry, as Coleridge says, is its own

CARLISLE. 285

exceeding reward, and so I found it. It not only
healed my heart, but it elevated my mind, raising
it not only above sorrow, but above sin, and keeping
me true to the great thoughts and inspirations which
it produced.

Much of it was produced while at household
work, which required my hands only, leaving my
head free to work out my ideas and to form them
into verse. I had many troubles and slights to
endure, and sometimes much scorn; but the joy of
my poetry effaced them all, and truly "none of
these things moved me" while that prospered,
which was not always the case.

I could do little or nothing at my poetry, save on
a Sunday, when it was the sweetener and uplifter of
my day. It helped to make me happy, though I was
devoid of the joys of family and friends. After Mr.
Percival left, I could find no Nonconformist church
with which I could ally myself. Brought up with
all the strong prejudices and predilections of dissent,
I had a very great objection to the formalities of
the church. The very singing in the church seemed
theatrical to me, and appeared to crush out the
spirituality of everything it sings.

286 MARY SMITH.

I once heard Newman's "Lead kindly light,"
which had long been a great delight and inspiration
to me, sung in Carlisle Cathedral — when I went to
hear the Rev. John Oakley preach, then its new
dean — and the singing shocked me. All its fine
spirituality was gone, and from that time I had to
forget what I had heard in the cathedral, before I
could again enjoy that holy hymn — a soul's cry,
indeed. I have always believed with Emerson that
it is the soul that sings. It was that which made
Sankey's singing so divine.

Alone in my secret meetings with God, I found
great strength on my knees, face to face with Him
who seeth in secret. I knew an old friend, who
used to kneel before God, after all were gone to
bed, till midnight, often till her voice was lifted in
a soft song of praise.

Singularly enough, I could never forget any verse
that was good. It would cleave to my memory till
I took it up again and adopted it. A friend once
asked me what was the cause of the great strength
he always found in my poetry. "Shall I tell you?'
I said, "I never compose till after much prayer,
Dpr until the spirit mounts freely." Of course,

CARLISLE. 287

there were exceptions to this rule, but they were
rare with me.

In composing "Progress," I read much and
studied much in various histories, and devoted
much patient thought to many points unthought of
by the casual reader. Its proper title, indeed,
ought to have been, "Religion: the Source and
Soul of all true Religion," for it was really a
Religious poem, and was meant to be taken as
such.

Two readers only, so far as I know, recognized it
in this light. These two read themselves into its
life and spirit. One was my old and honoured
friend, Mr. William Sutton of Scotby, who always
kindly appreciated any effort of mine. He read it
through to his family, night by night, marked what
he admired, and, not waiting till I could go over,
wrote me a long letter to tell me how he admired
both its spirit and tone; saying, in conclusion, that
he hoped it might be a blessing to many, as he was
sure it ought to be.

The other was a Scotch scripture reader, who
had borrowed the book from a friend. He had
read it as religious Scotchmen usually do read

288 MARY SMITH.

books — thoroughly and with great gusto. He ako
wrote me a letter, expressing his great admiration
of its religious spirit, together with many fervent
expressions about its influence, and the good such a
book must do.

Singular, not one of its reviewers noticed this, or
even seemed to suspect it. One said it was very
true to the history of England, but said nothing
about its being true to Religious history. An
Oxford paper, in a few words, perhaps did me the
most justice. It pointed out that my poetry was
characterized by deep thought, and though perhaps
not to be classed in the first rank, was yet worthy
of an honourable place. Others showed me, by
what they said of it, that they had never looked
into it, or could not distinguish between faithful
labour and poetical trifling.

Mrs. Carlyle's judgment of my first venture,
"that there was more thought in it, than in many
volumes of drawing room poetry," was quite true
of the next attempt. Like all second rate poets, I
lacked imagination, and believed too much in the
lower powers of will and continuous study. Some
jfew of the minor poems attained a mpre poetic

CARLISLE. 289

height. One or two of them, by others more than
by myself, were thought excellent. Latterly, I was
pleased to know they were read by working men,
in reading rooms, news rooms, etc.

Mr. Sutton of Scotby took a large number of my
books, as did Mr. Robert Ferguson of Morton, M.P.,
and one or two other friends. The Carlisle yournal
and the Carlisle Patriot reviewed it very fairly ; the
latter saying, "It was noble in every line;" and the
former, that, "Like Tennyson, I knew the secret of
going round and round a subject, till I had extracted
all its substance." The Banbury Guardian^ one of
my native county papers, also reviewed it well,
noting especially my truthfulness of description, in
a very appreciative manner.

My school was now at its best. I had from time

to time raised my terms, yet still had plenty of

applications. I had a great many country girls,

nearly grown up, the daughters of farmers, who

wanted to have a little finish in a town school. For

the last ten or fifteen years or more, nearly half of

my pupils were women grown. I could also have

had ladies as private pupils. I had now got to be

known as a woman of some learning ; and if my
L 19

290 MARY SMITH.

last volume of poetry bad brought me no money, it
bad increased my fame for knowledge.

The people of Cumberland understood and
appreciated me; and I in return, admired their
thrift, love of work, independence, and hardihood
— the country people being nearly all of this type.

CHAPTER XXIII.

As I got a little means gathered together, I began
to have a feeling that I should help any one I could
belonging to my own family. I had therefore taken
my eldest brother's daughter to live with me, with
the intention of training her to be a governess. My
brother — a man of intellectual tastes and tendencies
— ^had little liking for business, and consequently
had not succeeded in it.

I thought to train their daughter to get her own
living, thinking that perhaps she might also be able
to do something to help her parents. But in a few
months the poor thing, a girl of seventeen, never
very strong, began to droop. At the beginning of
winter she caught cold, and altered suddenly for
the worse during the night. On the following
morning, in an hour or two after coming down
stairs, she died, having on her travelling dress, and
all things ready for starting for home.

Thus alone in the world, I stood almost stunned,

292 MARY SMITH.

with my dead niece in the silent chamber. I felt a

mother's grief, yet with the necessity of one who had

to see to the ordering of all things solely herself.

My brother arrived early the next morning. Almost

his first words were, "I am glad she has died here,

as I don't think she would have lived long. And,

oh ! such work we had to get poor James buried !"
This event occurred before the Act was passed

which enabled dissenters to have their own minister
to bury their dead. My brother's son, a youth of
nineteen, who died unbaptised, had been the cause
of much trouble to his parents in his burial. During
the poor boy's illness of gastric fever, the clergyman
had gone several times to his parents' house, wor-
rying them to let him borrow a large brewing tub
at the "Lion" public house, in which to baptize
him before his death, ill as he was !

In vain they told him their son had been
converted and baptised with the Holy Spirit, and
that it was not required. He persisted in urging
that unless the youth were baptised he could not
have christian burial. At last he was told plainly,
they could not consent to such a course, and then —
he shook the dust from off his feet and departed I

CARLISLE. 293

Poor James died and was buried in the village
churchyard, without bell or book or priest, amid a
group of shuddering village onlookers, full of
sympathy for the lad; and his parents, full of
condemnation of priests and their intolerance and
vindictive rule. Would that the Church of England
could see itself as others see it ; even as the illiterate
village dissenter sees it ! Verily, it would lead to
truer ideas of right and justice.

We buried the poor girl decently in the cemetery
at Carlisle, a Wesleyan minister conducting a short
but feeling service. I did what I could to lighten
my brother's grief, and paid all expenses. But
what a sad winter ensued for me ! Through all the
dark months, that pale yoimg face was ever before
me, and my evenings became so sad that I was
often driven to walk forth into the streets, to
dissipate the pressing sadness that would cleave to
me, in spite of every effort to shake it off.

From the first I had been careful of my means,
and had always thought it right to save something
out of whatever my income might be. Mr. David
Blackburn, of the Carlisle and Cumberland Bank,
an old friend of mine, kindly offered to invest

8$4 MARY SMITH.

anything I might have to spare. I inshed him to
invest it in Carlisle and Cumberland Bank shares.
But after waiting some time, he sent me a note,
saying he had been offered ten shares in the City
and District Bank. Would I take these? I
accepted them, and afterwards added others, and
found they paid very well for a long time. I had
a few likewise in the Carlisle and Cumberland
Bank, as time went on, and I could spare the
means. But I held the proceeds of my money to
be sacred ; not to be spent, but carefully reserved
for the future, when I might not be able to work.

As for fine raiment, or jewellery, or fine furniture,
I had no ambition that way. A lover of learning
and literature can dispense with these things.
Needful and comfortable things, and things be-
fitting one's position, avoiding all singularity of
manner or appearance, I made an aim of having.
All else I thought it right to do without; nor was I
ever ashamed of being plainly dressed.

Indeed, I used to say I could do without dress,
as I found I got more respect with my plain dress,
than others did with much finery. The truth is, I
never could bear myself in new clothes, or in any*

CAkLlSLE. 295

thing like finery. Dress was rarely in my thoughts,

unless I chanced to be told by some female friend

that I was really getting very shabby, and then I

had to bestir myself. As for fashion, I was always

old fashioned.

I had my dresses made as a matter of economy.

I also thought to have them of good material ; often

saying, that I could not afford cheap things. What

other women delighted in, I hated, and had done

so from a girl — namely, shopping. I always put it

off as long as I could, and at last I went simply

because I was obliged to go.

But to return to my shares. They did very well
until the City of Glasgow Bank broke, precipitating
so many people of limited means into indigence.
This event created a feeling of insecurity in the
country, which acted injuriously on many provincial
banks, and aroused the fears of trustful country
people. My bank — ^the City and District— was
obliged to make certdn changes in order to meet
the emergency, and as a natural consequence, the
shares fell greatly.

It was a trying year to me, who had no resource
but my own earnings. All I had saved was invested

2g6 MARY SMITH.

in these bank shares. Along with others, I felt it
acutely, fearing the worst, as people usually do.
However, the constant advice of Mr. Blackburn
was of great use to me. It kept me more patient,
perhaps, than I otherwise should have been. He
helped me to understand the whole course of action
and probable result; and assured me that finally
things would all come right — which eventually
came true.

My losses were great for one like me, who had
known the tug of war ; and they finally proved to be
something like ;£^3oo. At first, this greatly affected
my mind, and darkened my existence with a night
which nothing but prayer could lift. But in pro-
portion to the depth of darkness caused by my
trouble — overwhelming at first — was the buoyancy
of my mind in finally rising above it. Thus after a
brief interval of intense sadness, I thought no more
of it, than though it had never been ; and I was
soon able to resume my old occupations of thought
and poetry as steps upward into the sunshine
again.

After attending assiduously for a month or more,
the sick bed of one of my nephews, who was staying

CARLISLE. 297

with me in Carlisle, I had the misfortune to be cast
down by a serious illness, which proved to be a
complication of t)rphoid fever and inflammation of
the lungs. As I was in a very critical condition —
it was, indeed, a struggle between life and death —
I had to have two medical men. Dr. Elliot and Dr.
Lockie.

My great misery was that I could get no rest.
I never slept for five nights. I was haunted by
strange unearthly sights, which continually flitted
before my mental vision, and though I knew them
to be only the illusion of the brain and the outcome
of my disease, I prayed most earnestly that I might
not lose my reason.

At this critical period, Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, who
then lived in Abbey-street, stood by me as sympa-
thizing friends. Their eldest daughter, formerly a
pupil of mine, had just finished her education in
Edinburgh. She very kindly offered to take what
remnant of my school was left, and bring them
forward to the best of her ability. This I most
gratefully accepted. I felt their kindness in an
inexpressible degree — a, kindness I never could nor
ever can repay.

29ft MARY SMITH.

My loss by this illness was very great, as I had
no resource to fall back upon but the savings of my
own economy. As soon as I was a little better,
the first thing I did was to send my girl up street
to pay the few small bills that had accumulated.
To my surprise, she came back with the money in
her hand, saying, all alike had refused to take
anything. " Not till Miss Smith is quite well again,
and able to come herself," they said, "will we take
the money." This and other acts of simple per-
sonal kindness and sympathy overpowered me with
feelings of gratitude to these trustful friends and
others.

END OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

CHAPTER XXrV.

It now only remains for the editor to supply a few
brief notes in conclusion.

Miss Smith — as she has stated — toiled and
struggled through many years to become possessed
of a moderate competency for old age. She denied
herself all luxuries and non-essentials, and lived
the life of a Spartan. Her food was plain; her
furniture was plain; and her dress — ^according to
the standard of the girl of the period — ^was plainer
still. Indeed, it may be said that not unfrequently her
dress was decidedly antiquated and old fashioned.

As she approached the age of sixty, her health
became precarious and changeable ; and after a few
years it fairly broke down, which necessitated her
relinquishing her school duties altogether. Like
many another poor mortal, the time of unclouded
old age and rest from labour (about which she had
fondly dreamed) never came. Thus her favourite
country walks became more and more circumscribed,
and at last had to be finally given up«

300 MARY SMITH.

Her affections clung so closely around the old
house in Finkle-street, and the plot of ground
behind, that she could scarcely separate herself
from them. In one of her letters she says : " The
usual term of my house expires at Whitsuntide.
Though I have no one belonging to me in Carlisle,
my heart grows sad at the thought of finally leaving
the old place."

She was induced to try the more salubrious
climate of southern England, and she took up her
abode for a short time with one of her nephews, at
Richmond, on the Thames, and from thence she
removed to Twickenham.

After a time, however, life became irksome to her
in the south. She sighed to be back within sight
of the blue hills of the "North countrie," and wrote
touching and pathetic appeals to that effect to her
friends in Cumberland. It soon became evident
that there was no rest for the sole of her foot but
at Carlisle, and not for any length of time even
there. With shattered nerves and great difficulty
in breathing, she returned again to the old Border
city. It was quite evident to her old acquaintances,
that her malady was gaining upon her. At times

CARLISLE. 301

life dragged on so wearily and monotonously — with
scarcely a perceptible ebb or flow — that her fervent
prayer was, to be released from her sufferings.

A friend, on calling upon her about this period,
found her in a state of muck consternation. " Oh,
dear ! oh, dear ! What think you ?" she exclaimed.

"Mrs. (in the next room there) sat sulking

the whole of last Sunday afternoon, with an open
Bible on her knee, never speaking a single word to
poor me, and seemingly quite oblivious to any of
my simple wants. Do you call that Christianity ?
I call it worse than heathenism ! "

Miss Smith has drawn a very truthful and pains-
taking picture of herself, with its varied lights and
shades of character, in the foregoing Autobiography.
The story which she tells of her connection with
the Osborn family, is one of almost incredible
nature; and yet, can anyone doubt its veracity?
No person of any penetration at all, I think, can
fail to see that truth is stamped on every page.
Her unceasing craving for intellectual intercourse,
and her intense love for the higher class of litera-
ture, no doubt, had something to do with it. But
much deeper than those was her warm human

302 MARY SMITH.

sympathy, set into action by the manifold sufierit^s
of an unfortunate and friendless family.

She was one of the most truthful spoken of
Adam's race it has been my fortune to know, with
any kind of intimacy. In cases where she did
overshoot the mark, the delusion was part and parcel
of her own nature. She had become unconsciously
to believe what she spoke or set forth.

Your clever or intellectual woman is invariably a
woman with a will of her own, and Miss Smith was
no exception to this rule ; and she certainly could
be stately when occasion required.

Miss Smith may be taken as a fair specimen of a
class of clever amateur authors, ever buoyant and
full of hope that the coy jade Fame will not give
them the go-by altogether ; a class of authors con-
siderable in all ages, but never more numerous than
at present. And what an unprofitable game the
publication of most books is to the great majority
of outside authors who write them ! Miss Smith
has told the tale of the slow dragging sale, and of
the no sale at all, which followed the issuing of the
two volumes of poetry put forth at different periods
of her life. One of her scholars often related, in a

CARLISLE. 303

jocular manner, how he made kite tails out of her
poems, when attendmg her school, and, by this
means, caused the genius in them to take higher
flight than ever it had done before !

Miss Smith held no exaggerated opinion of her
own abilities. Her ambition did not soar into the
clouds. She says very laudably and sensibly : " I
hope in some of my verses — in a few pictures from
nature, at least — I may finally stand with Miss
Blamire."

She is seen at her best in her poems founded on
Home and the Social Affections. "The Snow
Storm" was suggested to her while returning home
one Sunday afternoon in winter, from the cemetery
at Carlisle, when the snow lay thick on the ground,
and the sun was going down, round and red, in the
western sky, and the distant objects were partially
obscured by a thin film of white mist. This piece
has always appeared to me to be the most masterly
one she produced. It contains much deft and
delicate work, closely studied from nature. How
truthfully depicted, for example, are the fears and
ultimate despair which crush the mother's heart !

Another very perfect and finely conceived piece^

304 MARY SMITH.

is the one entitled " February," This short poem
is almost as fruitful in thought and suggestion as
one of Jean PauPs Fruit, Flower, and Thorn pieces.
It contains verses not unworthy of the old drama-
tists of Queen Elizabeth's tiine, which might have
received the commendation of Charles Lamb.
Take, for instance, the following : —

With nature sweet he bears it high,
A braggart, threat 'ning face he wears ;

If he must die his corpse shall lie
In warrior state, he loud declares.

He'll have no garlands round his head.
No foolish trappings of young flowers ;

But better fitting these instead —
The missiles keen of his own hours :

Snow, hail, and rain, shall mark where lies
His corpse when dead ; and madcap spring —

(The virgin with the changeful eyes).
Shall hear his loud artillery ring.

Among other favourable specimens of her handi-
craft, "Hannah Brown," "Lydia Lee," "Our
Village," "Home," and "Apple Gathering," may
be noted.

It is gratifying to be able to include in the
collection, two pieces in the Oxonian patois, the

CARLISLE. 305

first, I believe, ever attempted in that dialect.
These originally appeared in the columns of a
Banbury newspaper. " Mary and Me," and " Under
the Elms," are a couple of exquisite little domestic
idyls. Thus put before the public, there is no
saying what fruit they may bear. A dialect litera-
ture of modern growth, and of considerable
robustness, has sprung up in Lincolnshire, Cum-
berland, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Dorsetshire, and
many other English counties, much of which has
already taken deep root in the hearts of the
people.

Miss Smith died at 2 South Alfred-street, Carlisle,
on Wednesday, January 9th, 1889, in her sixty-
seventh year, and was interred in Carlisle cemetery,
where a plain stone marks her last resting place.
She left legacies to many relatives and friends, and
also to the Wesleyan Sunday School, Cropredy;
the Independent Sunday School, Great Bourton;
and the Unitarian Church, Carlisle.

Writing to an old and intimate friend shortly

before her death, and referring to her attendance at

the services of the Unitarians, Miss Smith said : —

"Should anything be said about me when I am
I. 20

306 MARY SMITH.

gone, I wish you to explain that, although I attended
the Unitarian Church in Carlisle for some time when
I was able to go out, I never was a Unitarian. I
do not believe in the Unitarian doctrine respecting
the Atonement, and I went to the Church I speak
of simply because I had reason to know that its
members were being discourteously used by many
persons on account of their theological opinions."

Speaking of this incident, her friend remarks : —
"Well, fortunately it may be said, for herself, bowed
down as she was with physical pain for which there
was no remedy — the brave and pure-hearted woman
who penned these words is now where, in all proba-
bility, neither the odium iheologicum nor any other
evil is known. For her also *the day has dawned
and the shadows have fled.* Her place from hence-
forth is with those among whom, throughout an
endless existence, she will find nothing to regret —
who know neither envy, malice, hatred, nor uncharit-
ableness, but are as the angels of God,"

APPENDIX.

LETTERS FROM JANE WELSH AND
THOMAS CARLYLE.

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea,

i6th January, 1854.

Dear Madam,

Your "faith in things unseen" — myself among them —
is very beautiful and affecting to me ; and likewise, I confess,
rather infectious, I cannot help believing in the good heart
and poetic nature, at least, of one who shows such belief in
my own "character," on evidence purely "internal."

And so, dear young lady, were I as influential as you
suppose me to be ; no more were needed, than what I gather
from your letter, to make me usf my influence in your interest.
But indeed it were only deceiving you with false hopes to
promise myself at all likely to find you the situation you wish
for. There is no such situation, to the best of my knowledge,
as that of "Assistant to a Literary Lady." My position as
the wife of a literary man has thrown me much into the
society of literary women, that is to say of women who write
books as well as read them. But not one I know has an
assistant Either these ladies follow literature as a trade— to

3o8 APPENDIX.

live by — in which case they could not pay an assistant ; or
following it for their pleasure, they want no assistant.

And, between ourselves, were such an assistantship created
on purpose for you, you would find yourself — or I am greatly
mistaken — no nearer, if so near, to "clear ideas" and "broad
knowledge " than you are now — teaching a school.

It does sometimes — once in two or three years or so —
happen to me that I can recommend a governess ; and in
case such opportunity present itself again, I will bear you in
remembrance, at whatever distance of time. That is all I
can promise, and I am sorry it is so little.

Meanwhile, believe a woman older than yourself, who has
seen, and seen ihro\ all you are now longing after. There is
as little nourishing lor an aspiring soul in literary society as
in any civilized society one could name! And for ** clear
ideas" and "broad knowledge," they are not secreted in any
comer of life, but lie in all life, for whoever has faculty to
appreciate them.

Yours with all good wishes,

JANE WELSH CARLYLE.

Miss Smith,

1 1 West Tower-street, Carlisle.

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea,

nth January, 1857.

Dear Miss Smith,

This time you come to me as an old acquaintance,
whom I am glad to shake hands with again. The mere fact
of your being still in the same position after so long an interval,
and with such passionate inward protest as that first letter

APPENDIX. 309

indicated, is a more authentic testimony to your worth, than
if you had sent me a certificate of character signed by all the
clergy and householders of Carlisle ! So many talents are
wasted, so many enthusiasms turned to smoke, so many lives
blighted, for want of a little patience and endurance ! for want
of understanding and laying to heart that which you have so
well expressed in these verses — the meaning of the Present!
— for want of recognising, that it is not the greatness or
littleness of "the duty nearest hand," but the spirit in which
one does it, that makes one's doing noble or mean !

I can't think how people, who have any natural ambition,
and any sense of power in them, escape going mad in a world
like this, without the recognition of that 1 I know I was
very near mad when I found it out for myself (as one has to
find out for one-self everything that is to be of any real
practical use to one). Shall I tell you how it came into my
head? Perhaps it may be of comfort to you in similar
moments of fatigue and disgust.

I had gone with my husband to live on a little estate of
peat bog^ that had descended to me, all the way down from
John Welsh, the Covenanter, who married a daughter of John
Knox. That didn't, I am ashamed to say, make me feel
Craigenputtock a whit less of a peat bog, and most dreary,
untoward place to live at ! In fact, it was sixteen miles
distant on every side from all the conveniences of life — shops
and even post office !

Further, we were very poor ; and further and worst, being
an only child, and brought up to "great prospects," I was
sublimely ignorant of every branch of useful knowledge,
though a capital Latin scholar and a very fair mathematician ! 1
It behoved me in these astonishing circumstances to learn —
to sew I Husbands, I was shocked to find, wore iheir stock*

3IO APPENDIX.

ings into holes ! and were always losing buttons I and / was
expected to **look to all that!" Also, it behoved me to
learn to cook! No capable servant choosing to live at **such
an out of the way place," and my husband having ** bad
digestion," which complicated my difficulties dreadfully. The
bread, above all, brought from Dumfries, "soured on his
stomach," (Oh, Heavens !) and it was plainly my duty as a
christian wife to bake at home !

So I sent for Cobbett's "Cottage Economy," and fell to
work at a loaf of bread. But knowing nothing about the
process of fermentation or the heat of ovens, it came to pass
that my loaf got put into the oven at the time myself oxx^t to
have put into bed, and I remained the only person not asleep,
in a house in the middle of a desert ! One o'clock struck,
and then hvo, and then three ; and still I was sitting there in
an intense solitude, my whole body aching with weariness,
my heart aching with a sense of forlomness and degradation.
"That I who had been so petted at home, whose comfort
had been studied by everybody in the house, wlio had never
been required to do anything but cultivate my mind, should
have to pass all those hours of the night in watching a hay of
bread! which mightn't turn out bread after all !"

Such thoughts maddened me, till I laid down my head on
the table, and sobbed aloud. It was then that somehow the
idea of Benvenuto Cellini, sitting up all night watching his
Pericles in the oven, came into my head ; and suddenly I
asked myself, "After all ; in the sight of the upper powers,
what is the mighty difference between a statue of Pericles and
a loaf of bread, so that each be the thing one's hand hath
found to do? The man's determined will, his energy, his
patience, his resource, were the really admirable things, of
which the statue of Pericles was the mere chance expression.

APPENDIX. 311

If he had been a woman, living at Craigenputtock, with a
dyspeptic husband, sixteen miles from a baker, and he a bad
one—zS\. these same qualities would have come out most fitly
in a good loaf of bread ! "

I cannot express what consolation this germ of an idea
spread over my uncongenial life, during five years we lived at
that savage place ; where my two immediate predecessors
had gone mad^ and the third had taken to drink !

But here am I beginning on a third little sheet [of note
paper] and you are waiting for my opinion of the verses ! If
you knew how completely I have lost all taste for poetry (so
called), you would not have appealed to f//y judgment of all
peoples ! Indeed, I should need to have been a poet bom,
to have continued writing or reading anything in verse, in the
valley of the shadow of Mr. Carlyle's denunciations of verse !
I suppose, too, as one gets old, one naturally falls back on
plain prose. But since you have asked my opinion, it would
be discourteous to refuse it, even on the plea of incompetence.

I have read these verses very carefully several times over,
and what I feel about them is that they are full of thought
and sense^ and deficient in music. They give me the impres-
sion of thought put into verse by force of will^ rather than
from a natural taste for singing itself

My husband once asked Monkton Milnes why he put what
he had to say into rhymes, **instead of just saying it."
The answer was — *' Why you see, a very little thought goes so
much further in verse 1" Now, it seems to me, ihziyou do
not lie under that general exigence of modem poets; driving
them on expedients to make a little thought go further than
its natural length. There is more thought in the verses you
have sent me, than might be elaborated into a long prose
essay— more thought than in several volumes of poems, lying

312 At>PENDlX.

about on drawing room tables. But it is hurt rather than
shown to advantage by the versification, which is hard and
sliff— in a word, unmusical.

I should hardly have trusted my own judgment in such a
matter, if Mr. Carlyle had not confirmed it. I read the
verses to him, having first given him my notions about them,
and he said — "Well, they are just what you said. The
young lady has something in her to write, but she should
resolve on sticking to prose. " That from him was rather high
praise, I assure you.

Yours truly,

JANE W. CARLYLE.

Bay Horse, Alverstoke, Hants,

19th August, [1858.]

Dear Miss Smith,

**Tf this meet your eye," (as the Times advertise-
ments say,) "you are requested to communicate" with Mrs.
Carlyle, 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea.

In fact, my present note is by way of dove sent forth from
the ark, to try if it can find rest for the sole of its foot, and
bring back an olive leaf from you to the effect that you are
still in Carlisle, and still recollecting me with the old kind
of feeling.

In that case, I should direct my energies towards ''carrying
out" an idea that has suggested itself to me of a meeting
between us face to face.

I am going to Scotland, please God, the end of next week ;
and have arranged to sleep at Carlisle on the road. I cannot
nor shall I be able to tell you beforehand what inn I shall

A1>PENDI3C 313

stop at I am in the hands of a lady who will meet me on
my arrival, having come all the way from Nithsdale '*to have
my tea and bed ready." But if I were sure of your being still
in Carlisle, and sure about your present address, I would find
some means of letting you know my whereabouts and the
hours of my stay.

I return to London on Monday next (23rd). If you get
this note in regular course, please to send an answer to the
old address. But besides the probability of your having
changed your old address, I do not even remember quite
certainly what it was ! I So my dove goes forth " under
difficulties "—decidedly.

Yours truly,

JANE WELSH CARLYLE.
Miss Smith,

9 (or 11) West Tower-street, Carlisle.

5 Cheyne Row.

(No date.)

Dear Miss Smith,

The pleasant surprise of your letter and book was
enhanced for me by a coincidence really very curious ! Only
a few minutes before the postman left them, I had said to my
husband as we sat at breakfast : **I wonder what Miss Smith
is about? I have heard nothing from her since I saw her in
Carlisle more than two years ago I" — And even while I spoke
the postman had turned into our street with the letter and
book I Was that chance? or magnetism? or what? Any-
how, it was something out of the jog-trot routine of one's life,
and very acceptable ! especially in this, **the gloomy month

314 APPENDIX.

of November, when the people of England hang and drown
themselves," [according to the French novelist I]

As for the Dedication; it could not but give me the warmest
pleasure, that you should entertain such kind thoughts of me,
and own to them before '*the public ;" at the same time I
underwent a little spasm of what we used to call, when
children, ** thinking shame V I felt so little deserving of
what you say there I

Dear Miss Smith I I have no goodness "to speak of." In
your intercourse with me, you have not seen me tried. Had
you been a stupid, commonplace woman, there is every reason
to believe you would have found me impatient, uncivil,
sarcastic, anything and everything but good. As it was, I
did but gratify myself in entering into correspondence with
you — and whatever goodness you have seen in me has been
goodness towards myself

I have delayed writing from day to day in the wish to have
"some reasonably good leisure" — that I might first read the
book, and write a long letter. But my husband's friends,
*Uhe Destinies " dXidiS "the Immortal Gods,^"* have laid their
heads together to overwhelm me with little worries, and with
what Mr. C. calls **a pressure of things," till I hardly know
what I am saying or doing.

You must excuse this scrubby note in the meantime, and
perhaps another day, when you are in danger of forgetting
me, the long letter will come into your hands.

Yours faithfully,

JANE WELSH CARLYLE.

APPENDIX. 315

Cheyne Row, Chelsea,

loth April, [1865.]

Dear Miss Smith,

I am always glad to hear from you, and like to read
your verses ; tho* I often wish you had taken to writing
practical /«?j^, rather, that is, ior your own sake. There is
so little appreciation for poetry in these "hard times," and,
alas ! so little remuneration for it ; while the appetite for
magazine Tales and three-volume novels is getting to be a

positive lupus ? something ! I forget the full medical

name of that disease which makes the victim gobble up, with
unslaked voracity, pounds on pounds of raw beef and tallow
candles ! or anything that comes readiest

I returned to London — by Carlisle again — about three
months after I saw you, but I could not ask you to meet me
at the station, even [if] it hadn't been too late at night. I
felt too sick and nervous from the paiting with my friends,
and the long night journey before me, and the return in the
morning to my poor old home, which I had been carried out
of eight months before, with no particle of hope that I should
ever set eyes on it again ! I felt a sacred honor of the house
in which I had suffered such tortures and such despair.

But so much had been done to change the aspect of my
rooms, and I was received back with such enthusiasm, that
all my morbid repugnance soon passed away, and all changes
having a good effect on me, so even the change back to
London had a beneficial effect on my health. I am still a
very feeble, rather suffering creature, but so much better
than I was a year ago, that I can never be thankful enough.

I am just returned from a month's stay in Devonshire, and
it was there your letter reached me, when I was being driven

3^6 APPENDIX.

thro* the loveliest country all days, and wearied to death at
nights, so wrote not at all to anybody.

I wish you could have given me better news of yourself;
and I wish most heartily that I could aid you in finding some
position more suited to your needs and tastes. But my
wishes are one thing, and my powers, alas f a quite other
thing ! At least be sure I will let slip no opportunity of
serving you.

Believe me always truly yours,

JANE CARLYLE.
Miss Smith,

1 6 Finkle-street, Carlisle.

5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea,

8 Deer., 1873.

Dear Madam,

I well enough remember the transient shadow of
fine relation which you once had in this household ; and in a
mournful changed condition must always have ; nor do you
miscalculate the value I put upon it, or the feeling it awakens
in me.

In looking over your book I am well pleased to find, what
is rare in books, a perfect sincerity and worthiness of purpose ;
and I can easily believe that those clear utterances of your
convictions and emotions about social and domestic matters
may benefit many serious readers, now and in years coming.
The question has sometimes arisen with me whether if you
wrote down your ideas and feelings in simple and distinct
prose, it might not be still better for your readers and yourself.
This is a question I cannot pretend to decide ; but my guess.

APPENDIX. 317

if your circumstances suited and your inclinations prompted,
would be clearly as above.

As to "Progress," about which there has been such chanting
and trumpeting for the last half century, especially for the last
score of years, I confess I could never see much in it, or
decidedly discern any progress except in Smithwork and its
adjuncts; — a very sooty, shrieky, and to me contemptible
kind of progress, — yielding, as I often say, immensities of
gold to those who least of all deserve it among us ; and who
can do, when one reflects upon it, nothing but mischief by
being thus made kings among their fellows.

For the rest, I quite agree with you. All, or almost all
the "Progress" in Smithwork and gold nuggets, is due to the
Puritan ages ; a fact which, on contrasting their moralities
with our so miraculous smitheries, is a very melancholy one.

With many regards, yours sincerely,

T. CARLYLE.
Miss Smith,

8 Finkle-street, Carlisle.

G. AND T, COWARD, PRINTERS, CARLISLE,

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